her, and was quick to take offense.

"Got any saleratus?" she asked.

"No," said I. "Why?"

She stepped over to the Fewkes wagon and brought back a small packet of
saleratus, a part of which she stirred into the batter.

"It's gettin' warm enough so your milk'll sour on you," said she. "This
did. Don't you know enough to use saleratus to sweeten the sour milk?
You better keep this an' buy some at the next store."

"I wish I had somebody along that could cook," said I.

"Can't you cook?" she asked. "I can."

I told her, then, all about my experience on the canal; and how we used
to carry a cook on the boat sometimes, and sometimes cooked for
ourselves. I induced her to sit by me on the spring seat which I had set
down on the ground, and join me in my meal while I told her of my
adventures. She seemed to forget her ragged and unwashed dress, while
she listened to the story of my voyages from Buffalo to Albany, and my
side trips to such places as Oswego. This canal life seemed powerfully
thrilling to the poor girl. She could only tell of living a year or so
at a time on some run-down or never run-up farm in Indiana or Illinois,
always in a log cabin in a clearing; or of her brothers and sisters who
had been "bound out" because the family was so large; and now of this
last voyage in search of an estate in Negosha.