Molly Brown's Orchard Home Part 11

Molly kissed her mother and then flew up the steps of the balcony to the sleeping quarters that she and Judy were to occupy, just to peep out of the window into the court. Then she ran to the tiny kitchen. "I am itching to get to work on that little gas stove and see how it cooks,"

she exclaimed.

"Now, Molly, there is one thing I am going to put my foot down about: you are not to be working and cooking all the time we are in Paris. If this housekeeping is going to make you slave constantly, we will give it up and go back to Mrs. Pace. We will all share the work; the girls must do their part, too," and Mrs. Brown looked quite serious and determined.

"I promise, Mumsy, not to overwork but please let me do most of the cooking. I simply love to cook and I know Judy can't brew a cup of tea or boil an egg, and I fancy Elise has not had the kind of training that would make her very domestic. Of course, I'll be studying myself before so very long at the Sorbonne, and then I am afraid you will be the one to be overworked."

Just then there was a knock at the door: it proved to be the short-haired female artist from the adjoining studio. "I saw you had just moved in and I came to offer my a.s.sistance in settling you if you need me," she said in a voice singularly low and sweet for one of her very mannish appearance.

Her sandy hair was parted on the side and rather tousled, she had a freckled face and a turned-up nose, and a broad, good-natured, clever looking mouth. Her clothes were just as near being a man's as the law allowed: black Turkish trousers and a workman's blouse with paint all over the back, giving it very much the effect of the Bents' china press.

Mrs. Brown and Molly looked at her wonderingly. She was a new and strange specimen to them. Their politeness was equal, however, to any shock and they thanked her for her kindness and asked her to come in.

"My name is Williams, Josephine Williams, commonly known as Jo Bill.

Mrs. Bent told me of you and asked me to look after you until you got on to the ways of the Quarter and the tricks of the concierge. I thought I'd begin by asking you to afternoon tea to-morrow. I wish I could have you to-day but I've got a model posing for me and I must work every minute of daylight. I am going to get in the Kinsellas, our other neighbors, and Polly Perkins,--that is the man who lives in the court with us. He is not nearly such a big fool as he looks and talks."

"Is his name really 'Polly?'" asked Molly.

"Oh, no! He has a perfectly good man's name, but I am blessed if I remember it. Everybody calls him Polly. He is a cubist painter, you know; does the weirdest things and now has taken up a kind of cubist effect in sculpture; but you will see his things for yourself. I'd like to give him a good shaking and stand him in the corner. The poor fool can draw; made quite a name for himself at Carlo Rossi's and has a sense of color that even this crazy cult can't down. Goodness, how I am rattling on! I must fly back to my model who has rested long enough. You will come to-morrow, then? Please bring three tea cups with you," and the strange looking female strode off.

"Mother, isn't she funny? I like her, though, and think it will be grand to have tea with her and to meet 'Polly'."

"I like her, too," said Mrs. Brown. "She has such a nice, big, honest mouth. You know I never could stand little mouths. But, Molly, how on earth does she manage to wipe her paint brush on the back of her blouse and keep the front so clean? I wonder what kind of an artist she is."

"Maybe she is a futurist or a symbolist. Anyhow, she is very cordial and kind. I wish Aunt Clay could know that we are to have tea with a woman in trousers and a long-haired man."

The shops in the Rue Brea proved to be all that could be desired. A delightful little coffee, tea and chocolate shop was the first to be visited. It was no bigger than their tiled kitchen, but was lined with mirrors which gave it quite a s.p.a.cious effect. The madame who presided was lovely and looked just like a cocoa advertis.e.m.e.nt in her cap and ap.r.o.n. They made their purchases of freshly ground Mocha-and-Java coffee and chocolate. The tea they had been warned against by the Marquise d'Ochte. "Never get tea from a French shop or let a French person make it for you. Tea is beyond the ken of the French."

Then they went to a creamery, painted white inside and out as are all the creameries in Paris. There were great pyramids of b.u.t.ter ranged along the marble counter according to its freshness, with rosy girls deftly patting off pounds and half pounds, quarter pounds and even two sous' worth. Molly and her mother followed their noses to the freshest pyramid. It seemed to be just out of the churn and Molly declared that it made her homesick for Aunt Mary and the dairy at Chatsworth. They bought some of the delicious unsalted b.u.t.ter for dinner and left an order for a fresh pat to be sent in every morning for breakfast, also milk and cream and eggs.

Next came the grocery where they got their list of dull necessities in the way of flour, lard, salt, pepper, sugar and what not. Then the bakery, to order the little crescent rolls, _croissants_, to be sent in every morning and also to purchase a crusty loaf for dinner.

"Mother, smell that smell!" exclaimed Molly as they left the bakery.

"What can it be? It is a mixture of all good cooking but I can't distinguish any particular odor."

Next to the bakery was a poultry shop, with every kind of winged creature hanging from hooks, inside and out: turkeys, ducks, chickens, geese, guineas, grouse, pigeons, partridges. In the back of the small, dark shop was a great open fireplace where logs of wood were blazing brightly, and in front of this fire were a series of spits, one over the other, stretching across the whole fireplace, all arranged to turn by a common crank. On these spits were stuck specimens of the different birds, and a fat, red-faced youth in white cap and blouse turned the spit and basted the browning fowls from a long, deep trough which caught all of the drippings. And so it happened that the turkeys borrowed delicacy from the pigeons; and the chickens, flavor from the wild duck, etc. And the gravy: Oh that gravy! All the perfumes of Araby could not equal it. The Browns were carried away by their discovery of this wonderful place. They immediately purchased a fine fat hen and monsieur, the proprietor, promised to have it roasted and sent hot to them by six-thirty.

"And please give us a whole lot of gravy, _beaucoup de jus_," demanded Molly.

The charming fat boy gave her a beaming smile and determined to take an extra quant.i.ty to the beautiful Americaine if he lost his job as spitter.

The dinner was a great success. Elise did come directly from the station as they had hoped she would, and she was so happy at being made one of the gay little crowd in the Rue Brea and so grateful to Mrs. Brown for taking her into her fold, that it made all of them glad to have her.

"Isn't it splendid to be able to loosen up and undress for dinner? It is especially fine when the dinner is so delicious," exclaimed Elise. "I am going to learn how to cook, if Molly will help me. Mamma never would let me go near the kitchen, and do you know I have never even seen any uncooked food except in shop windows and don't know a raw beefsteak from an old boot leg?"

"Papa says a French chef can cook up a boot leg with a sauce surprise that you couldn't for the life of you tell from the finest kind of steak. Now this roast chicken is the best I have ever tasted, with a gravy that has the squawk of the wild duck and the coo of a pigeon and----" but here Judy stopped to help herself plentifully to the wonderful gravy and Molly finished out her speech for her:

"And the gobble of a turkey; and what attribute of the goose?"

The table in the studio, with its bowl of chrysanthemums, strips of j.a.panese toweling in lieu of a cloth, and odd blue china was very attractive. The china was odd in two senses of the word, as not a single saucer matched its cup and no two plates were of the same size. But what mattered that? Was not the coffee in the cups of the hottest and clearest and strongest? Was not the chicken and gravy, on the miscellaneous plates, food for the G.o.ds? Was not the rice, _a la New Orleans_, a marvel of culinary skill? Where but in Paris could one find such crusty bread and delicious b.u.t.ter? The _salade Romaine_ was crisp and fresh and Judy had made the salad dressing. It was her one accomplishment in the way of preparing food. She did it in great style and was always much hurt if any one else was given her job.

"Judy reminds me of Garrick and ought to make the dressing, anyhow,"

said Molly. "You remember what Sydney Smith said of him: 'Our Garrick's a salad, for in him we see, oil, vinegar, pepper, and mustard agree.'"

"Do you know the Spanish recipe for salad dressing?" asked Elise. "'A spendthrift for oil; a n.i.g.g.ard for vinegar; a sane man for salt and a maniac for beating it.'"

Judy was proving her suitability by beating so vigorously and clicking so loudly with the fork, that a gentle knock on the door had to be sharply repeated before they were sure of it. There was a general scramble from the kimonoed crowd, who were not expecting a visitor at this hour. But Mrs. Brown, who wore a black China silk wrapper and was always presentable, went to the door where a small boy in a long white linen ap.r.o.n and a baker's cap stood with a huge flat basket on his head.

"_Un gateau pour Madame Brune._"

"But we have not ordered a cake."

But the small boy was sure it was a cake for Mrs. Brown, and when the great flat basket was lifted from his head, there, in verity, was reposing a beautiful mocha cake with Mrs. Brown's name and address distinctly written on a card, but nothing else.

"An anonymous cake for Mumsy," laughed Molly. "Oh, you chaperone!"

There was another knock at the door, which this time turned out to be a bunch of violets apiece for the four ladies from Mr. Kinsella and a box of chocolates from Pierce.

"Why, this is a house warming, girls! What next? I wonder who sent the cake."

Mrs. Brown cut generous slices of that _specialite_ of Paris, with its luscious, soft coffee-flavored covering, hardly an icing, as it is too soft and creamy to be called that.

"_Ah, j'en ai jusque a la_," said Judy, disposing of the last crumb of cake and making a motion of cutting her throat with her hand, "which in plain English means 'stuffed'. I am glad we can't eat the violets. Maybe after we move around a little we can hold some chocolates, but not yet, not yet!"

Mrs. Brown and Molly began to clear off the table, but they were forcibly held by Elise and Judy who insisted that the scullions' part was theirs.

"Mamma tried to make me promise to stand twenty minutes after meals for form's sake, I mean my own form," said Elise. "And what could be better than washing dishes for the complexion? A good steaming is what Mamma has said I need, as she declares I am so sallow, so I shall steam over the dishpan. Let's make a rule never to leave the dishes, no matter how tired we are. Mr. Kinsella says that when he and my father were sharing a studio here in Paris, when they were boys, they used to leave the dishes until they had used up all their supply; and then they would turn them over and eat off the bottoms of the plates. He says those careless ways are what disgust one finally with Bohemia."

"It was certainly kind of Mr. Kinsella to remember me, too, and send me a bunch of violets," said Judy as she wiped the cups Elise was washing.

"Mr. Kinsella is always kind," said Elise. "There never was such a thoughtful man. I feel so grateful to him, and I am going to work like a Trojan to let him see how I appreciate his interest in me." Elise blushed rather more than mere grat.i.tude called for, and Judy thought that the dish water steaming was improving her complexion greatly already. She determined to wash next time herself and let Elise do the drying!

CHAPTER XI.

A STUDIO TEA IN THE LATIN QUARTER.

"The only thing that worries me in this delightful arrangement of co-operative housekeeping is the accounts," sighed Mrs. Brown at breakfast the next morning. "I am such a poor hand at arithmetic and a franc is so like a quarter that it is hard for me to remember it is only twenty cents; and a sou is so huge and heavy, I feel that it must be more than a cent. I pin my faith to a five franc piece which is like and is a dollar. I'd turn the money part over to Molly if she were not even worse than I am about it."

"Don't give it to me, please," begged Molly. "You know dear old Nance Oldham used to say I could do without money but I could not keep it."

"Well, Mrs. Brown, you should not be bothered to death about it, and I think we should elect a secretary and treasurer; and since there is no one here fitted to fill the place, I propose a new member to our club."

Judy got up and reached from a high plate rack a funny, glazed Toby jug.

"I propose the name of Sir Toby Belch as a member of this club."

"I second the nomination and wish to offer an amendment to the motion,"

said Elise: "that the said Sir Toby be made secretary and treasurer of this a.s.sociation. All in favor of this amendment say 'Aye,' contrary 'No.' The ayes have it. Now are we ready to vote on the motion?"