would have charged herself with being an unfaithful, undutiful
mother. But this done, she saw no further, beheld nothing of the
neglect, the carelessness, the cruelty, of all the rest, part of
which this very moment was outspread beneath her eyes.

For at the foot of the table, where David's father had sat, were
two partly eaten dishes: one of spare-rib, one of sausage. The
gravy in each had begun to whiten into lard. Plates heaped with
cornbread and with biscuit, poorly baked and now cold, were placed
on each side. In front of him had been set a pitcher of milk; this
rattled, as he poured it, with its own bluish ice. On all that
homely, neglected board one thing only put everything else to
shame. A single candle, in a low, brass candlestick in the middle
of the table, scarce threw enough light to reveal the scene; but
its flame shot deep into the golden, crystalline depths of a jar of
honey standing close beside it--honey from the bees in the garden--
a scathing but unnoticed rebuke from the food and housekeeping of
the bee to the food and housekeeping of the woman.

Work in the hemp fields leaves a man's body calling in every tissue
for restoration of its waste. David had hardly taken his seat
before his eye swept the prospect before him with savage hope. In
him was the hunger, not of toil alone, but of youth still growing
to manhood, of absolute health. Whether he felt any mortification
at his mother's indifference is doubtful. Assuredly life-long
experience had taught him that nothing better was to be expected
from her. How far he had unconsciously grown callous to things as
they were at home, there is no telling. Ordinarily we become in
such matters what we must; but it is likewise true that the first
and last proof of high personal superiority is the native,