Excerpt: "Binney Jenks, Tallow Martin, and I were sitting on Mark Tidd’s front porch, waiting for him to get through supper. Maybe you’ve got an idea that didn’t take any patience, but you want to change your mind pretty quick. Eating supper wasn’t any two-second job with Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Tidd. You can bet it wasn’t. He didn’t just grab a bite and run like us fellows do, but he sat down to the table with his stummick about six inches away from the edge of it, and kept on eating till he touched. He knew we were waiting for him, but that didn’t make a bit of difference. If General Grant and the Emperor Napoleon were hanging around waiting for him to come out and play tag with them, he’d have eaten just as much and not a mite faster. When you weigh as much as he does I calc’late it takes more to keep you going, just like it takes more wood to run a big stove than it does a little one. It didn’t take him much more than an hour to get his stummick filled up this time, and out he waddled, looking kind of pleased and peaceful, with his hand resting gentle on his belt."
