He basked in
the blaze and grew pink and gay, and even sought to initiate a game of
peek-a-boo from behind his white mittens with one of the ruffians; and
although a bit dashed when the surly, absorbed eyes stared unresponsively
at him, he plucked up spirit to ask if they were going to have supper,
and to say that he wanted some, and that he was a very good boy.
"Breakfast, Bub--this is the 'tother end of the day," Clenk explained,
preparing to broil slices of meat on the coals. There was soon a
johnny-cake baked on a board set up before the flames, but the pork was
evidently a new proposition to the small captive, and although he eyed it
greedily he could make no compact with it. Now and again he licked with a
grimace of distaste the unsavory chunk given him, and desisted, to watch
with averse curiosity the working jaws of the men and the motion of the
muscles in their temples as they hastily gobbled the coarse fare which
they cut with their clasp-knives. The fire duplicated their number with
their shadows, and occasionally he eyed these semblances speculatively as
they stretched on the sandy ground or skulked in the underbrush behind
their unconscious principals.
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