less degree, by all who partake of the viands, according to the state of the different appetites, and sensibilities. But this ghost of the school-boy pie, this spectral plum-pudding, sitting in judgment upon the present generation of pies and puddings, when it takes possession of husband, brother, or father, has often proved the despair of a housekeeper. In such a case, no pains-taking labors, no nice mixing of ingredients, no careful injunctions to cook or baker, are of any use whatever; that the pie of to-day can equal the pie of five-and-twenty years since, is a pure impossibility. The pudding is tolerable, perhaps—it does pretty well—they are much obliged to you for the pains you have taken—yes, they will take a little more—another spoonful, if you please—still, if they must speak with perfect frankness, the rice-pudding, the plum tart, the apple-pie they are now eating, will no more compare with the puddings, and tarts, and pies eaten every day in past times at their good mother's table, than—language fails to express the breadth of the comparison! Such being man's nature, apropos of pies and puddings, it follows, of course, that the pumpkin-pies eaten by the first tribe of little Yankee boys were never equalled by those made of peaches and plums in later years, and the pumpkin-pie was accordingly promoted from that period to the first place in pastry, among all good Yankees. Probably the first of the kind were simple enough; eggs, cream, brandy, rose-water, nutmegs, ginger, and cinnamon, are all used now to flavor them, but some of these ingredients must have been very precious to the early colonists, too valuable to be thrown into pies.
Probably there was also another reason why the pumpkin-pie was so much in favor in New England: it had never made part
