A House Party with the Tucker Twins Part 9

The cooking part was easy, but keeping up the fire has always been too much for my limited intelligence. Wood and more wood must be poked in the stove at every crucial moment. In the midst of beating up an omelette one must stop and pile on more fuel. Peeping in the oven the rolls may be rising in regular array with a faint blush of brown appearing on each rounded cheek; the batter bread may be doing as batter bread should do: the crust rising up in sheer pride of its perfection sending forth a delicious odor a little like popcorn;--but just then the joy of the vainglorious cook will take a tumble,--the fire must be fed.

"Now is this what you had planned for breakfast, Miss Maria? You see we have got everything under way, and if there was anything else I can do it," I asked.

"Of course no breakfast is really complete without waffles," sighed the poor lady, "at least, that is what my brother thinks. He will have to do without them this morning, though."

"Why? I can make them and bake them!"

"But, child, you must be seated at the table with the other guests. I could not let you work so hard."

"But I love to cook! Please let me!"

"All right, but who can bring the hot ones in? It takes two to serve waffles. I, alas, am too fat to go back and forth."

"Of course I am going to wait on the table," cried Dum, "and when I drop in my tracks, the other girls can go on with the good work."

"Well, well, what good girls you are! I have been told that the girls of the present time are worthless and I am always reading of their being so inferior to their mothers, but I believe I must have been misinformed."

"I hope you have been," laughed Dum. "My private opinion is that we are just about the same,--some good and some not so good; some bad and some not so bad. Anyhow, I am sure that there is not a girl on this party who would not be proud to help you, or boy, either, for that matter."

"We shall have to call the boys to our aid, too, I am afraid," said Miss Maria, glancing ruefully at the wood-box. "The wood is low and we can't cook without wood, eh, Page?"

"Won't I love to see them go to work," and Dum danced up and down the kitchen waving a dish-cloth.

The quiet mansion was astir now. The rising bell had routed the sleepy heads out of their beds, and from the boys' wing came shouts of the guests who were playing practical jokes on one another or merely making a noise from the joy of living. Dee and Mary found us in the kitchen and roundly berated us for not calling them in time to help. Dee reported that Jessie Wilc.o.x was still in the throes of dressing.

"One of you might go pull some radishes and wash them and peel them,"

suggested Miss Maria.

Dee was off like a flash and came back with some parsley, too, to dress the dishes.

"Mary, get the ice and see to the water," was the next command from our general. "I must go now and put on something besides this old wrapper,"

and our aristocratic hostess sailed to the house, her lawn wings spread.

Our next visitor was General Price himself, very courtly and very apologetic and very admiring. He had just learned of the defection of the servants when he called for his boots and they were not forthcoming.

Jasper had blacked his boots and brought them to his door every morning for half a century, but no Jasper appeared on that morning. The boots remained unblacked.

Another duty of the hitherto faithful butler had been to concoct for his master and the guests a savory mint julep in a huge silver goblet. This was sent to the guest chambers and every lady was supposed to take a sip from the loving cup. It was never sent to the boys, as General Price frequently a.s.serted that liquor was not intended for the youthful male, and that he for one would never have on his soul that he had offered a drink to a young man. He seemed to have a different feeling in regard to the females, thinking perhaps that beautiful ladies (and all ladies were beautiful ladles in his mind) would never take more than the proffered sip.

On that morning during the big meeting General Price must make his own julep. This he did with much pomp and ceremony, putting back breakfast at least ten minutes while he crushed ice and measured sugar and the other ingredients which shall be nameless. A wonderful frost on the silver goblet was the desired result of the crushed ice. The mint protruding from the top of the goblet looked like innocence itself. The odor of the fresh fruit mingling with the venerable concoction of rye was delicious enough to make the sternest prohibitionist regret his principles.

"Now a sip, my dear; the cook must come first," he said, proffering me the completed work of art.

"Oh no, General Price! I might not take even a sip if I am to cook waffles. I might fall on the stove."

"A sip will do you good, just a sip!" he implored.

It was good and just a sip did not do me any harm. I had not the heart to deny the courtly old man the pleasure of indulging in this rite that was as much a part of the daily routine as having his boots blacked and brought to his door or conducting family prayers.

"Delicious!" I gasped.

"More delicious now than it was," he declared, "since those rosy lips have touched the brim," and then he quoted the following lines with old-fashioned gallantry:

"'Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.

"'I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honoring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be; But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me; Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself but thee!'"

He bowed low and handed me a beautiful rosebud, the same, I believe, before which Dum had stood so enthralled earlier in the morning. I took a long sniff and then pinned it in my hair, much to the old gentleman's delight.

He turned away to have another fair guest take the prescribed sip, and that naughty Mary Flannagan buried her nose in my beautiful rose and whispered:

"But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me; Since when it blows and smells I swear, Not of itself but whiskee!"

CHAPTER VII

THE REASON WHY

THAT was a very merry breakfast. From my kitchen fastness I could hear the peals of laughter as Mary pretended to be a field hand, brought into the dining-room for the first time, to wait on the table. I even left my waffles for a moment to peep in the door. Dee, who was helping with the waiting, spied me and gave the a.s.sembled company the tip, and before I could get away they grabbed me and pulled me into the room where I had to listen to three rousing cheers for the cook. A batch of waffles burnt up in consequence, although I ran down the covered way like Cinderella when the clock struck twelve. A warning smell of something burning gave me to understand my time was up.

Baking waffles is a very exciting pastime. The metamorphosis that batter undergoes in almost a twinkling of an eye into beautiful crisp brown beauties is a never ending delight and joy to the cook. With irons just hot enough (and that is very hot indeed) and batter smooth and thin, smooth from much beating and thin from much milk and many eggs, I believe a baker of waffles can extract as much pure pleasure from her profession as a great musician can from drawing his bow across a choice Cremona; or a poet can from turning out successful verse; or a painter from watching his picture grow under his skilled hands.

The house-party was full up at last, and then the cook and waitress must be seated in the places of honor and be waited on by the whole crowd.

Not quite all of the crowd, I should have said, as Jessie was superior to waiting on anybody. She seemed quite scornful of us for being able to help Miss Maria.

"I have never been an adept at the domestic arts," she said somewhat stiffly. "I could not cook or wash dishes if my life depended on it."

"Humph!" sniffed Dum, "I reckon you could if you got good and hungry.

Of course you couldn't do it well, that is, not as well as Page, for she can't be equalled. As for washing dishes,--you can take your first lesson after Page and Mary and Dee finish breakfast. All of these dishes have to be washed and there is no one to do it but the house-party."

"Well, I guess not!" and Jessie looked at her pretty soft, beringed hands.

"Very well then, you can do the upstairs work! Beds must be made, you know!"

"Absurd! Do you take me for a housemaid?"

"No, I wouldn't have you for one, but you might get a job for a few hours before the folks found out about you."

Dum's tone was rollicking and good-natured. She seemed to have no idea that she was insulting the pretty Jessie. It never entered Dum's head that anyone would shirk a duty that was so apparent as taking the work of Maxton in hand.

I enjoyed that breakfast very much. Harvie baked waffles for us and Wink White brought them in. The young men from Kentucky ran back and forth waiting on us, all of them making more noise and having more collisions than would have been the case had a regiment been feeding.

Shorty had already begun to grease the buck-saw preparatory to sawing up wood for Miss Maria. He and Rags had volunteered to supply the fuel.

Then the cows must be milked; the horses curried and fed; in fact, all the farm work must be done.