Page:Rural Hours.djvu/479

Rh d'œuvre. It is talked of, in village parlance, as the ham-and-egg season, because at this time butchers are not to be depended on. A few years since such was the case here, but at present we are better supplied. As for country taverns, it may be doubted if they ever set a table without ham, broiled or fried, with eggs also, if possible. During an excursion of ten days, the summer before last, in the southern counties, we had but one meal without ham, and frequently it was the only meat on table. The Wandering Jew would have fared badly in this part of the world, especially if he moved out of sight of the railroads.

There are said to be more hogs in the United States than in all the different countries of Europe together, so that a traveller ought not to be surprised when he meets these animals in the handsomest streets of our largest towns, as he may do any day. Probably we should be a more healthy nation if we were to eat beef and mutton, where we now eat pork.

It is not improbable that this taste for salt and smoked food generally, may be owing to the early colonial habits, when the supply of fresh meats, with the exception of game, must have been small; and the habit once formed, may have become hereditary, as it were.

Monday, 18th, 7 o'clock, —Lovely, soft morning. The valley lies cool and brown in the dawning light, a beautiful sky hanging over it, with delicate, rosy, sun-rise clouds floating here and there amid the limpid blue. It will be an hour yet before the sun comes over the hill; at this season its rays scarcely touch the village roofs before eight, leaving them in shadow again a little after four.

How beautiful are the larger pines which crown the eastern hill at