Isaac Barker's Sport

When a huge platter of meat was being brought on the table, and we were all looking at it with most pleasant anticipations, for it appeared to have been cooked to a turn, Isaac seized the dish in both hands, ran out of the room as if intending to eat it all himself, and the older girls followed him, racing around and around the building with shouts of mirth, while the tavern keeper and his wife looked on in amazement, until Isaac tired of running.

Then he replaced the meat on the table; but by this time it had grown cold, and instead of having hot venison steak, we were forced to eat lukewarm meat, and it is not needed that I should say anything concerning the disagreeable flavor of deer flesh when it has been kept too long from the fire.

There are times when one really wearies of Isaac's sport, and, as Ben Cushing said when we drove away from Carlisle, a little fun now and then is relished by the saddest of men; but when one keeps it up from morning until night, and again from night until morning, it grows wearisome.