I

Breakfast is my best meal, and I reckon it's always been

Ever since I was old enough to know what breakfast could mean.

I mind when we lived in the cabin out on the Illinoy,

Where father had took up a quarter-section when I was a boy,

I used to go for the cows as soon as it was light;

And when I started back home, before I come in sight,

I come in smell of the cabin, where mother was frying the ham,

And boiling the coffee, that reached through the air like a mile o' ba'm,

[Pg 142]'N' I bet you I didn't wait to see what it was that the dog

Thought he'd got under the stump¹ or inside o' the hollow log!

But I made the old cows canter till their hoof-joints cracked—you know

That dry, funny kind of a noise that the cows make when they go—

And I never stopped to wash when I got to the cabin door;

I pulled up my chair and e't like I never had e't before.

And mother she set there and watched me eat, and eat, and eat,

Like as if she couldn't give her old eyes enough of the treat;

And she split the shortened biscuit, and spread the butter between,

And let it lay there and melt, and soak and soak itself in;

And she piled up my plate with potato and ham and eggs,

Till I couldn't hold any more, or hardly stand on my legs;

And she filled me up with coffee that would float an iron wedge,

And never give way a mite², or spill a drop at the edge.

 

[Pg 143]

 

II

What? Well, yes, this is good coffee, too. If they don't know much,

They do know how to make coffee, I will say that for these Dutch.

But my—oh, my! It ain't the kind of coffee my mother made,

And the coffee my wife used to make would throw it clear in the shade;

And the brand of sugar-cured, canvased ham that she always used—

Well, this Westphalia stuff would simply have made her amused!

That so, heigh? I saw that you was United States as soon

As ever I heard you talk; I reckon I know the tune³!

Pick it out anywhere; and you understand how I feel

About these here foreign breakfasts: breakfast is my best meal.

 

III

My! but my wife was a cook; and the breakfasts she used to get

The first years we was married, I can smell 'em and taste 'em yet:

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