We may be said to have had a Thanksgiving dinner once a week. But
the principal dish was not fowl. Far from it. It was salt fish; but
probably no better meal from this article of food is ever served on
shore. With every desirable vegetable, and some sparkling champagne
cider which a thoughtful friend had placed among our stores, we were
rivals with Ruth when she sat beside the reapers of Boaz in the harvest
field, and he reached her the parched corn “and she did eat and was
sufficed and left.” For dessert we had at that meal “roly-poly,” which
is thin flour paste spread with apple sauce, then rolled together and
boiled; this with sweet sauce flavored with vanilla made us for the
time imagine ourselves on shore. We entertained each other at these
feasts with the choicest anecdotes, which our repasts disposed us to
call to mind and to relish; for example, instances of Mr. Choate’s
ingenuity, as, when defending a sea captain charged with cruelty to
his crew, he undertook to show that so far from being cruel he was
eminently considerate, so much so that instead of searching the law
books to find out, as the witnesses alleged, what punishments were
allowable and could be inflicted with impunity, he was only guarding
himself against the excessive use of legitimate discipline; “he read
the books with paternal yearnings; he was a mild but firm parent;”
and instead of keeping his crew on vile trash, tasteless, sometime
loathsome, “think, gentlemen of the jury, of applying such words to the
nutritious lob scouse and the succulent dandy funk!” How could the jury
help saying as they presently did, Not guilty?