Part 13 (1/2)

Roger sneered. ”Your poor people, indeed! I am cooking for the King!

Will you hesitate now?”

”Cooking for the King!” cried Rafe. ”Ah, but he is not so hungry as my neighbors will be to-morrow without their rabbit-pies.”

”Rabbit-pies! It is a pie for the King that I am making!” shouted Roger, in high dudgeon,--”such a pie as you and your louts never dreamed of.

Now what say you? Will you come?”

”I must do my own small cooking first,” said Rafe firmly.

”Very well then,” growled Roger. ”Cook for your beggars first; but come to me to-morrow. Every cook in town but you is engaged. I must have your help.”

”I will come,” said Rafe simply, and Roger bade him a surly good-bye without thanks or promises.

The next morning, when his own simple tasks were done, Rafe hied him to his brother's kitchen, and there he found great doings. Roger was superintending the preparations for baking an enormous pie. A group of masons had just finished building the huge oven out of doors, and about a score of smiths were struggling with the pie-dish, which they had forged of iron. It was a circular dish six feet across and three feet deep; and it looked more like a swimming-tank than anything else.

Rafe stared in amazement. ”Is that to hold your pie, Brother?” he asked.

”Yes!” growled Roger. ”Now get to work with the other men, for the crust must be baked this morning.”

Three a.s.sistant cooks in caps and ap.r.o.ns were busy sifting buckets of flour, measuring out handfuls of salt and b.u.t.ter. Others were practicing with long rolling-pins made for the occasion, so big that a man had to roll at each end. On the ground lay a great round piece of tin, six feet across, pierced full of holes.

”What is that?” whispered Rafe to one of his fellow cooks.

”That is to be the lid of the pie,” answered the cook. ”See, they are lifting it onto the dish now. It will have a strong hinge, and it will be covered with crust.”

”And what is to fill this marvelous pie?” asked Rafe, wondering still more. ”Tender capon? Rabbits? Venison? Peac.o.c.ks? What is suitable for a King? I do not know.”

”Ah, there you show your lack of imagination!” cried the cook. ”Master is a great man. This is a poetic pie. It is to be filled with flowers, and on the flowers will be sitting ten beautiful little children, pink and sweet as cherubs, dressed all in wreaths of flowers. And when the pie reaches the King, the top will be opened, and they will all begin to sing a song in honor of Their Majesties. Is it not a pretty thought?”

”Well, if the King be not too hungry,” said the practical Rafe, doubtfully.

”Nonsense!” cried the cook testily. ”Would you make out our King to be a cannibal?”

”Nay,” said Rafe; ”that is why I doubt. However, I am here but to a.s.sist in this colossal plan. Hand me yon bag of salt.”

All day long at Roger's kitchen the cooks worked over the King's Pie. At noon came a band of ten mothers, each with a rosy, smiling baby. They placed the children in the great sh.e.l.l to see how they would look. Every one cried: ”Charming! Superb! But ah! we must not tell any one, for Roger has paid us well, and the other cooks must not know how he is to win the prize to-morrow!”

Weary and unthanked, with his meager day's wage,--a little bag of flour and a pat of b.u.t.ter, sugar, and a handful of salt,--Rafe went home, musing sadly. ”A team of white oxen; a hundred sacks of white flour; a hundred pieces of white silver,--what a prize! If only I could earn these, I should be rich, indeed, and able to help my poor neighbors. But Roger will win the prize,” he thought.

He spread on the table his frugal supper. He had emptied his larder that morning for a sick woman. He had but a few apples and a bowl of cream.

It was the first food he had eaten that day, for his brother had forgotten to bid him to his table.

As he was taking a bite from one of the rosy-checked apples, there came a tap at the door.

”Enter!” cried Rafe hospitably. The hinges creaked, and there tottered in a little, bent, old woman in a long black cloak, leaning on a staff.

”Good evening, Son,” she said, in a cracked voice. ”Are you a man of charity, or will you turn away a poor old soul who has had nothing to eat for many hours?”

Rafe rose and led her to the table. ”Sit down, Mother,” he said kindly.