Part 60 (1/2)

And trust this knowledge will carry us through When other fishes we have to 'do.'”

Edith is a little orphan girl who lives with her grandmother and sister Minnie. We are all so interested about the cooking cla.s.s, that she tells us about how they learn to bake bread.

”I mixed the bread last Friday night and made some biscuit in the morning, and if I hadn't forgotten the salt they would have been splendid. I don't remember all the verses about bread, but one verse is:

”'Now you place it in the bread bowl, A smooth and nice dough ball, Last, a towel and a cover, And at night that's all.

But when morning calls the sleeper From her little bed, She can make our breakfast biscuit From that batch of bread.'”

”Well, it's girls' work to cook and boys' work to catch,” said Al, who was getting tired of hearing verses.

”Jeanie did some catching before she was five years old, and you forget how nicely papa cooked the breakfast when you were camping out last summer.”

”I suppose his cooking, like Jeanie's fis.h.i.+ng, was just an accident.”

”No, indeed! Good cooking has to be learned,” I said, ”and this picture makes me think of the first fish I had to cook, and what a foolish girl I had.”

”Oh, mamma's going to tell us a story about when she was a girl,”

Jeanie exclaims. So all take seats--Jeanie on my lap, the boys on the two arms of my chair, and the three little sisters on chairs or footstools.

Not about when I was a girl, but about when I was a very young wife.

You boys know that I had always lived in a big house in the city, where the servants did all the cooking and such work, while I practiced music or studied or visited my Sunday-school scholars. I was just as fond of them in those days as I am now. Well! Your papa took me to a dear little house, far, far away, near Lake George. I had a very young girl to help me about the house, who did not know any thing about cooking. I thought I knew a good deal, for I had learned to bake bread, and roast meat and make a cup of tea or coffee. I had just as much fun keeping house in that little cottage as Jeanie has playing house up stairs. But one day papa went off in a hurry and forgot to ask me what I wanted for dinner. He was to bring a gentleman home that day and I hoped he would send me a good dinner.

About ten o'clock Annie, my little servant, came to me and said, ”Oh, ma'am, the butcher's here with a beautiful fish the master has sent for the meat.”

”A fis.h.!.+ Annie, do you know how to cook fish?” I said.