'Tis a curus old piece,
'n' that's a fact. Kin ye read the motter on it?"
Hilda had not been _looking_ at the dish, though her eyes had been
unconsciously fixed upon it, and she now bent forward to examine it. It
was an oblong platter, of old blue and white crockery. In the middle
(which was now visible, as the "creature" had just transferred the last
potato to his own plate, stabbing it with his knife for that purpose)
was a quaint representation of a mournful-looking couple, clad in
singularly ill-fitting aprons of fig-leaves. The man was digging with a
spade, while the woman sat at a spinning-wheel placed dangerously near
the edge of the deep ditch which her husband had already dug. Round the
edge ran an inscription, which, after some study, Hilda made out to be
the old distich:
"When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?"
Hilda burst out laughing in spite of her self.
"Oh, it is wonderful!" she cried. "Who ever heard of Eve with a
spinning-wheel? Where did this come from, Farmer Hartley? I am sure it
must have a history."
"Wa-al," said the farmer, smiling, "I d'no ez 't' hes so to speak a
hist'ry, an' yit there's allays somethin' amoosin' to me about that
platter. My father was a sea-farin' man most o' his life, an' only came
to the farm late in life, 'count of his older brother dyin', as owned
it. Well, he'd picked up a sight o' queer things in his voyages, father
had; he kep' some of 'em stowed away in boxes, and brought 'em out from
time to time, ez he happened to think of 'em.
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