Part 14 (1/2)
ironing. That was all there would be about Mrs. Dunikin.
Meanwhile, with a pair of gloves on, and a little plain-hemmed three-cornered, dotted-muslin cap tied over her hair with a muslin bow behind, mother had let down the ashes,--it isn't a bad thing to do with a well-contrived stove,--and set the pan, to which we had a duplicate, into the out-room, for Stephen to carry away. Then into the clean grate went a handful of shavings and pitch-pine kindlings, one or two bits of hard wood, and a sprinkle of small, s.h.i.+ny nut-coal. The draughts were put on, and in five minutes the coals were red. In these five minutes the stove and the mantel were dusted, the hearth brushed up, and there was neither chip nor mote to tell the tale. It was not like an Irish fire, that reaches out into the middle of the room with its volcanic margin of cinders and ashes.
Then--that Monday morning--we had brewis to make, a little b.u.t.tered toast to do, and some eggs to scramble. The bright coffee-pot got its ration of fragrant, beaten paste,--the brown ground kernels mixed with an egg,--and stood waiting for its drink of boiling water. The two frying-pans came forth; one was set on with the milk for the brewis, into which, when it boiled up white and drifting, went the sweet fresh b.u.t.ter, and the salt, each in plentiful proportion;--”one can give one's self _carte-blancher_,” Barbara said, ”than it will do to give a girl”;--and then the bread-crumbs; and the end of it was, in a white porcelain dish, a light, delicate, savory bread-porridge, to eat daintily with a fork, and be thankful for. The other pan held eggs, broken in upon bits of b.u.t.ter, and sprinkles of pepper and salt; this went on when the coffee-pot--which had got its drink when the milk boiled, and been puffing ever since--was ready to come off; over it stood Barbara with a tin spoon, to toss up and turn until the whole was just curdled with the heat into white and yellow flakes, not one of which was raw, nor one was dry. Then the two pans and the coffee-pot and the little bowl in which the coffee-paste had been beaten and the spoons went off into the pantry-closet, and the breakfast was ready; and only Barbara waited a moment to toast and b.u.t.ter the bread, while mother, in her place at table, was serving the cups. It was Ruth who had set the table, and carried off the cookery things, and folded and slid back the little pembroke, that had held them beside the stove, into its corner.
Rosamond had been busy in the brown room; that was all nice now for the day; and she came in with a little gla.s.s vase in her hand, in which was a tea-rose, that she put before mother at the edge of the white waiter-napkin; and it graced and freshened all the place; and the smell of it, and the bright September air that came in at the three cool west windows, overbore all remembrance of the cooking and reminder of the stove, from which we were seated well away, and before which stood now a square, dark green screen that Rosamond had recollected and brought down from the garret on Sat.u.r.day. Barbara and her toast emerged from its shelter as innocent of behind-the-scenes as any bit of pretty play or pageant.
Barbara looked very nice this morning, in her brown-plaid Scotch gingham trimmed with white braids; she had brown slippers, also, with bows; she would not verify Rosamond's prophecy that she ”would be all points,” now that there was an apology for them. I think we were all more particular about our outer ladyhood than usual.
After breakfast the little pembroke was wheeled out again, and on it put a steaming pan of hot water. Ruth picked up the dishes; it was something really delicate to see her sc.r.a.pe them clean, with a pliant knife, as a painter might cleanse his palette,--we had, in fact, a palette-knife that we kept for this use when we washed our own dishes,--and then set them in piles and groups before mother, on the pembroke-table. Mother sat in her raised arm-chair, as she might sit making tea for company; she had her little mop, and three long, soft clean towels lay beside her; we had hemmed a new dozen, so as to have plenty from day to day, and a grand Dunikin wash at the end on the Mondays.
After the china and gla.s.s were done and put up, came forth the coffee-pot and the two pans, and had their scald, and their little scour,--a teaspoonful of sand must go to the daily cleansing of an iron utensil, in mother's hands; and _that_ was clean work, and the iron thing never got to be ”horrid,” any more than a china bowl. It was only a little heavy, and it was black; but the black did not come off. It is slopping and burning and putting away with a rinse, that makes kettles and spiders untouchable. Besides, mother keeps a bottle of ammonia in the pantry, to qualify her soap and water with, when she comes to things like these. She calls it her kitchen-maid; it does wonders for any little roughness or greasiness; such soil comes off in that, and chemically disappears.
It was all dining-room work; and we were chatty over it, as if we had sat down to wind worsteds; and there was no kitchen in the house that morning.
We kept our b.u.t.ter and milk in the brick b.u.t.tery at the foot of the kitchen stairs. These were all we had to go up and down for. Barbara set away the milk, and skimmed the cream, and brought up and scalded the yesterday's pans the first thing; and they were out in a row--flas.h.i.+ng up saucily at the sun and giving as good as he sent--on the back platform.
She and Rosamond were up stairs, making beds and setting straight; and in an hour after breakfast the house was in its beautiful forenoon order, and there was a forenoon of three hours to come.
We had chickens for dinner that day, I remember; one always does remember what was for dinner the first day in a new house, or in new housekeeping. William, the ch.o.r.e-man, had killed and picked and drawn them, on Sat.u.r.day; I do not mean to disguise that we avoided these last processes; we preferred a little foresight of arrangement. They were hanging in the b.u.t.tery, with their hearts and livers inside them; mother does not believe in gizzards. They only wanted a little salt bath before cooking.
I should like to have had you see Mrs. Holabird tie up those chickens.
They were as white and nice as her own hands; and their legs and wings were fastened down to their sides, so that they were as round and comfortable as dumplings before she had done with them; and she laid them out of her two little palms into the pan in a cunning and cosey way that gave them a relish beforehand, and sublimated the vulgar need.
We were tired of sewing and writing and reading in three hours; it was only restful change to come down and put the chickens into the oven, and set the dinner-table.
Then, in the broken hour while they were cooking, we drifted out upon the piazza, and among our plants in the shady east corner by the parlor windows, and Ruth played a little, and mother took up the Atlantic, and we felt we had a good right to the between-times when the fresh dredgings of flour were getting their brown, and after that, while the potatoes were boiling.
Barbara gave us currant-jelly; she was a stingy Barbara about that jelly, and counted her jars; and when father and Stephen came in, there was the little dinner of three covers, and a peach-pie of Sat.u.r.day's making on the side-board, and the green screen up before the stove again, and the baking-pan safe in the pantry sink, with hot water and ammonia in it.
”Mother,” said Barbara, ”I feel as if we had got rid of a menagerie!”
”It is the girl that makes the kitchen,” said Ruth.
”And then the kitchen that has to have the girl,” said Mrs. Holabird.
Ruth got up and took away the dishes, and went round with the crumb-knife, and did not forget to fill the tumblers, nor to put on father's cheese.
Our talk went on, and we forgot there was any ”tending.”
”We didn't feel all that in the ends of our elbows,” said mother in a low tone, smiling upon Ruth as she sat down beside her.
”Nor have to scrinch all up,” said Stephen, quite out loud, ”for fear she'd touch us!”
I'll tell you--in confidence--another of our ways at Westover; what, we did, mostly, after the last two meals, to save our afternoons and evenings and our nice dresses. We always did it with the tea-things.
We just put them, neatly piled and ranged in that deep pantry sink; we poured some dipperfuls of hot water over them, and shut the cover down; and the next morning, in our gingham gowns, we did up all the dish-was.h.i.+ng for the day.