Madeline anticipated the rising storm, and stamped her foot and cried:
"_Will_ you be still?"
It was Grandma Keeler who quietly and adroitly restored peace to the
troubled waters.
The Wallencampers, including the Keeler family, were not accustomed to
speak of bread as a compact and staple article of food, but rather as one
of the hard means of sustaining existence represented by the term
"hunks." At the table, it was not "will you pass me the bread?" but--and
I shall never forget the sweet tunefulness of Madeline's tone in this
connection--"Will you hand me a hunk?"
The hunks were an unleavened mixture of flour and water, about the size
and consistency of an ordinary laborer's fist.
I was impressed, in first sitting down at the Keelers' table, with a
sense of my own ignorance as to the most familiar details of life, but
soon learned to speak confidently of "hunks," and "fortune stew," and
"slit herrin'," and "golden seal."
Fortune stew was a dish of small, round blue potatoes, served perfectly
whole in a milk gravy.
I cherish the memory of this dish as sacred, as well as that of all the
other dishes that ever appeared on the Wallencamp table.
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