“Lord’s sakes alive, Mis’ Henderson, you’s dun it like a bawn cook, you has. Land sake! but it just kills me to see ladies work,” she added, going into another chuckle of delight. “Waal, now, Mis’ Henderson, dat ‘ere turkey’ll want a mighty sight of doin’. Tell ye what — I’ll come over and put him in for you, ‘bout three o’clock,” she concluded, giving me a matronizing pat on the back.
“Besides,” said little Midge wisely, “there’s all the chambers and the parlors to do.”
Sure enough! I had forgotten that beds do not make themselves, nor chambers arrange themselves, as always had seemed to me before. But I went at the work, with little Midge for handmaid, guiding her zeal and directing and superintending her somewhat erratic movements, till bedrooms, parlors, house, were all in wonted order. In the course of this experience, it occurred to me a number of times how much activity, and thought, and care, and labor of some one went to make the foundation on which the habitual ease, quiet, and composure of my daily life was built; and I mentally voted Mary a place among the saints.
Punctually to appointment Dinah came over and lifted my big turkey into the oven, and I shut the door on him, and thought my dinner was fairly under way. But the kitchen stove, which always seemed to me the most matter-of-fact, simple, self-evident verity in nature, suddenly became an inscrutable labyrinth of mystery in my eyes. After putting in my turkey, I went on inspecting my china-closet, and laying out napkins, and peering into preserve jars, till half an hour had passed, when I thought of taking a peep at him. There he lay, scarcely warmed through, with a sort of chilly whiteness upon him.
“Midge,” I cried, “why don’t this fire burn? This turkey isn’t cooking.”
“Oh, dear me, mum! you’ve forgot the drafts is shut,” said Midge, just as if I had ever thought of drafts, or supposed there was any craft or mystery about them.
Midge, however, proceeded to open certain mysterious slides, whereat the stove gave a purr of satisfaction, which soon broadened into a roar.
“That will do splendidly,” said I; “and now, Midge, go and get the potatoes and turnips, peel them, and have them ready.”
The stove roared away merrily, and I went on with my china-closet arrangements, laying out a dessert, till suddenly I smelled a smell of burning. I went into the kitchen, and found the stove raging like a great red dragon, and the top glowing hot, and, opening the oven door, a puff of burning fume flew in my face.
“Oh, Midge, Midge,” I cried, “what is the matter? The turkey is all burning up!” and Midge came running from the cellar.
“Why, mother shuts them slides part up, when the fire gets a-going too fast,” said Midge—”so;” and Midge manipulated the mysterious slides, and the roaring monster grew calm.
But my turkey needed to be turned, and I essayed to turn him — a thing which seems the simplest thing in life, till one tries it and becomes convinced of the utter depravity of matter. The wretched contrary bird of evil! how he slipped and slid, and went every way but the right way! How I wrestled with him, getting hot and combative, outwardly and inwardly! How I burned my hand on the oven door, till finally over he flounced, spattering hot gravy all over my hand and the front breadth of my dress. I had a view then that I never had had before of the amount of Christian patience needed by a cook. I really got into quite a vengeful state of feeling with the monster, and shut the oven door with a malignant bang, as Hensel and Gretel did when they burned the old witch in the fairy story.
But now came the improvising of my dessert! I had projected an elegant arrangement of boiled custard, with sponge-cake at the bottom, and feathery snow of egg-froth on top — a showy composition, which, when displayed in a high cut-glass dish, strikingly ornaments the table. I felt entirely equal to boiled custard. I had seen Mary make it dozens of times. I knew just how many eggs went to the quart of milk, and that it must he stirred gently all the time, in a kettle of boiling water, till the golden moment of projection arrived. So I stirred and stirred, with a hot face and smarting hands; for the burned places burned so much worse in the heat as to send a doubt through my mind whether I ever should have grace enough to be a martyr at the stake for any faith or cause whatever.
But I bore all for the sake of my custard; when, oh! from some cruel, mysterious, unexplained cause, just at the last moment, the golden creamy preparation suddenly separated into curd and whey, leaving my soul desolate within me. What had I done? What had I omitted? I was sure every rite and form of the incantation had been performed just as I had seen Mary do it hundreds of times; yet hers proved a rich, smooth, golden cream, and mine unsightly curd and watery whey! The mysteriousness of natural laws was never so borne in upon me. There is a kink in every one of them, meant to puzzle us. In my distress I ran across to the back door again and consulted Dinah.
“What can be the matter, Dinah? My custard won’t come, when I’ve mixed everything exactly right, according to the rules; and it’s all turned to curd and whey!”
“Land sake, missis, it’s jest cause it will do so sometimes — dat ‘ere’s de reason,” said Dinah, with the certainty of a philosopher. “Soft custard is jest de aggravatin’est thing! you don’t never know when it’s goin’ to be contrary and flare up agin you.”
“Well, Dinah,” said Miss Dorcas, “you try your luck with some of our fresh morning’s milk — you always have luck — and carry it over to Mrs. Henderson.”
The dear old angel! No morning-cap, however fearful, could disguise her. I fell upon her neck and kissed her, then and there, she was so good! She is the best old soul, mother, and I feel proud of having discovered her worth.
I told her how I did hope some time she would let me do something for her, and we had quite a time, pledging our friendship to each other in the kitchen.
Well, Dinah brought over the custard, thick and smooth, and I arranged it in my high cut-glass dish and covered it with foamy billows of whites of egg tipped off with sparkles of jelly, so that Dinah declared that it looked as well “as dem perfectioners could do it;” and she stayed to take my turkey out for me at the dinner hour; and I, remembering my past struggle and burned fingers, was only too glad to humbly accept her services.
Dinah is not a beauty by any of the laws of art, but she did look beautiful to me when I left her getting up the turkey, and retired to wash my hot cheeks and burning hands and make my toilet; for I was to appear serene and smiling in a voluminous robe, and with unsullied ribbons, like the queen of the interior, whose morning had been passed in luxurious ease and ignorant of care.
To say the truth, dear mother, I was so tired and worn out with the little I had done that I would much rather have lain down for a nap than to have enacted the part of charming hostess. Talk about women meeting men with a smile when they come in from the cares of business! I reflected that, if this sort of thing went on much longer, Harry would have to meet me with a smile, and a good many smiles, to keep up my spirits at this end of the lever. However, it was but for once; I summoned my energies and was on time, nicely dressed, serene and fresh as if nothing had happened, and we went through our dinner without a breakdown, for little Midge was a well-trained waiter and did heroically.
Only, when I came to pour the coffee after dinner, I was astonished at its unusual appearance. Our clear, limpid golden coffee had always been one of our strong points, and one on which I had often received special compliments. People had said, “How do you contrive to always have such coffee?” and I had accepted with a graceful humility, declaring, as is proper in such cases, that I was not aware of any particular merit in it, etc.
The fact is, I never had thought about coffee at all. I had seen, as I supposed, how Mary made it, and never doubted that mine would be like hers; so that when a black, thick, cloudy liquid poured out of my coffeepot, I was, I confess, appalled.
Harry, like a good fellow, took no notice, and covered my defect by beginning an animated conversation on the merits of the last book our gentleman had published. The good
man forgot all about his coffee in his delight at the obliging things Harry was saying, and took off the muddy draught with a cheerful zeal, as if it was so much nectar.
But, on our way to the parlor, Harry contrived to whisper: —
“What has got into Mary about her coffee to-day?”
“Oh, Harry,” I replied, “Mary’s gone. I had to get the dinner all alone.”
“You did! You wonderful little puss!” said the good boy. “Never mind the coffee! Better luck next time.” And, after we were alone that night, Harry praised and admired me, and I got out the cookery book to see how I ought to have made my coffee.
The directions, however, were not near as much to the point as the light I got from Dinah, who came across on a gossiping expedition to our kitchen that evening, and to whom I propounded the inquiry, “Why wasn’t my coffee clear and nice like Mary’s?”
“Land sakes, Mis’ Henderson, ye didn’t put in no fish-skin, nor nothing to cl’ar it.”
“No. I never heard of such a thing.”
“Some uses fish-skin, and some takes an egg,” continued Dinah. “When eggs is cheap, I takes an egg. Don’t nobody have no cl’arer coffee ‘n mine.”
I- made Dinah illustrate her theme by one practical experiment, after the manner of chemical lecturers, and then I was mistress of the situation. Coffee was a vanquished realm, a subjugated province, the power whereof was vested henceforth, not in Mary, but myself.
Since then, we have been anxiously looking for Mary every day; for Thursday is coming round, and how are we to have “our evening” without her? Alice and Angie are both staying with me now to help me, and on the whole we have pretty good times, though there isn’t any surplus of practical knowledge among us. We have all rather plumed ourselves on being sensible domestic girls. We can all make lovely sponge-cake, and Angie excels in chocolate caramels, and Alice had a great success in currant jelly. But the thousand little practical points that meet one in getting the simplest meal, nobody knows till he tries. For instance, we fried our sausages in butter, the first morning, to the great scandal of little Midge, who instructed us gravely that they were made to fry themselves.
Since “our boys” have found out that we are sole mistresses of the kitchen, they often drop in to lighten our labors and to profess their own culinary accomplishments. Jim Fellows declares that nobody can equal him in coffee, and that he can cook a steak with tomato sauce in a manner unequaled; and Bolton professes a peculiar skill in an omelette; so we agreed yesterday to let them try their hand, and we had a great frolic over the getting up of a composition dinner. Each of us took a particular thing to be responsible for; and so we got up a picnic performance, which we ate with great jollity. Dr. Campbell came in with a glass coffee-making machine by which coffee was to be made on table for the amusement ‘of the guests as well as for the gratification of appetite; and he undertook, for his part, to engineer it. Altogether we had a capital time, and more fun than if we had got the dinner under the usual auspices; and, to crown all, I got a letter from Mary that she is coming back to-morrow, — so all’s well that ends well. Meanwhile, dear mother, though I have burned my hands and greased the front breadth of my new winter dress, yet I have gained something quite worth having by the experience of the last few days.
I think I shall have more patience with the faults and shortcomings of the servants after this; and if the custard is a failure, or the meat is burned, or the coffee doesn’t come perfectly clear, I shall remember that she is a sister woman of like passions with myself, and perhaps trying to do her very best when she fails, just as I was when I failed. I am quite sure that I shall be a better mistress for having served an apprenticeship as a maid.
So good-by, dear mother.
Your loving — EVA.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A FOUR-FOOTED PRODIGAL
THERE was dismay and confusion in the old Vanderheyden house, this evening. Mrs. Betsey sat abstracted at her tea, as one refusing to be comforted. The chair on which Jack generally sat alert and cheerful at meal times was a vacant chair, and poor soft-hearted Mrs. Betsey’s eyes filled with tears every time she looked that way. Jack had run away that forenoon and had not been seen about house or premises since.
“Come now, Betsey,” said Miss Dorcas, “eat your toast; you really are silly.” —
“I can’t help it, Dorcas; it’s getting dark and he doesn’t coma Jack never did stay out so long before; something must have happened to him.”
“Oh, you go ‘way, Mis’ Betsey!” broke in Dinah, with the irreverent freedom which she generally asserted to herself in the family councils, “never you fear but what Jack’ll be back soon enough — too soon for most folks; he knows which side his bread’s buttered, dat dog does. Bad penny allers sure to come home ‘fore you want it.”
“And there’s no sort of reason, Betsey, why you shouldn’t exercise self-control and eat your supper,” pursued Miss Dorcas authoritatively. “A well-regulated mind”—”You needn’t talk to me about a well-regulated mind, Dorcas,” responded Mrs. Betsey in an exacerbated tone. “I haven’t got a well-regulated mind and never had, and never shall have; and reading Mrs. Chapone and Dr. Watts on the Mind, and all the rest of them, never did me any good. I’m one of that sort that when I’m anxious I am anxious; so it don’t do any good to talk that way to me.” —
“Well, you know, Betsey, if you’ll only be reasonable, that Jack always has come home.”
“And good reason,” chuckled Dinah. “Don’t he know when he’s well off? you jest bet he does. I know jest where he is; he’s jest off a-gallivantin’ and a-prancin’ and a-dancin’ now ‘long o’ dem low dogs in Flower Street, and he’ll come back bimeby smellin”nuff to knock ye down, and I shall jest hev the washin’ on him, that’s what I shall; and if I don’t give him sech a soapin’ and scrubbin’ as he never hed, I tell you! So you jest eat your toast, Mis’ Betsey, and take no thought for de morrer, Scriptur’ says.”
This cheerful picture, presented in Dinah’s overpoweringly self-confident way, had some effect on Mrs. Betsey, who wiped her eyes and finished her slice of toast without further remonstrance.
“Dinah, if you ‘re sure he’s down on Flower Street, you might go and look him up, after tea,” she added, after long reflection.
“Oh, well, when my dishes is done up, ef Jack ain’t come round, why, I’ll take a look arter him,” quoth Dinah. “I don’t hanker arter no dog in a gineral way, but since you’ve got sot on Jack, why, have him you must. Dogs is nothin’ but a plague; for my part I’s glad there won’t be no dogs in heaven.”
“What do you know about that?” said Mrs. Betsey, with spirit.
“Know?” said Dinah. “Hain’t I heard my Bible read in Rev’lations all ‘bout de golden city, and how it says, ‘ Widout are dogs’? Don’t no dogs walk de golden streets, now I tell you; got Bible on dat ar. Jack’ll hev to take his time in dis world, for he won’t get in dere a-promenadin’.”
“Well then, Dinah, we must make the most we can of him here,” pursued Miss Dorcas, “and so, after you’ve done your dishes, I wish you’d go out and look him up. You know you can find him, if you only set your mind to it.”
“To think of it!” said Mrs. Betsey. “I had just taken such pains with him; washed him up in nice warm water, with scented soap, and combed him with a fine-tooth comb till there wasn’t a flea on him, and tied a handsome pink ribbon round his neck, because I was going to take him over to Mrs. Henderson’s to call, this afternoon; and just as I got him all perfectly arranged, out he slipped, and that’s the last of him.”
“I’ll warrant!” said Dinah, “and won’t he trail dat ar pink ribbon through all sorts o’ nastiness, and come home smellin’ wus ‘n a sink drain! Dogs hes total depravity, and hes it hard; it’s no use tryin’ to make Christians on ‘em. But I’ll look Jack up, never you fear. I’ll bring him home, see if I don’t,” and Dinah went out with an air of decision that carried courage to Mrs. Betsey’s heart.
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sp; “Come, now,” said Miss Dorcas, “we’ll wash up the china, and then, you know, it’s Thursday — we’ll dress and go across to Mrs. Henderson’s and have a pleasant evening; and by the time we come back Jack’ll be here, I dare say. Never mind looking out the window after him now,” she added, seeing Mrs. Betsey peering wistfully through the blinds up and down the street.
“People talk as if it were silly to love dogs,” said Mrs. Betsey in an injured tone. “I don’t see why it is. It may be better to have a baby, but if you haven’t got a baby, and have got a dog, I don’t see why you shouldn’t love that; and Jack was real loving, too,” she added, “and such company for me; he seemed like a reasonable creature; and you were fond of him, Dorcas, you just know you were.”
“Of course, I’m very fond of Jack,” said Miss Dorcas cheerfully; “but I’m not going to make myself miserable about him. I know, of course, he’ll come back in good time. But here’s Dinah, bringing the water. Come now, let’s do up the china — here’s your towel — and then you shall put on that new cap Mrs. Henderson arranged for you, and go over and let her see you in it. It was so very thoughtful in dear Mrs. Henderson to do that cap for you; and she said the color was very becoming.”
“She is a dear, sweet little woman,” said Mrs. Betsey; “and that sister of hers, Miss Angelique, looks like her, and is so lovely. She talked with me ever so long, the last time we were there. She isn’t like some young girls, she can see something to like in an old woman.”
Poor good Miss Dorcas had, for the most part, a very exalted superiority to any toilet vanities; but, if the truth were to be told, she was moved to an unusual degree of indulgence towards Mrs. Betsey by the suppressed fear that something grave might have befallen the pet of the household. In a sort of vague picture, there rose up before her the old days, when it was not a dog, but a little child, that filled the place in that desolate heart. When there had been a patter of little steps in those stiff and silent rooms; and questions of little shoes, and little sashes, and little embroidered robes, had filled the mother’s heart. And then there had been in the house the racket and willful noise of a schoolboy, with his tops, and his skates, and his books and tasks; and then there had been the gay young man, with his smoking-caps and cigars, and his rattling talk, and his coaxing, teasing ways; and then, alas! had come bad courses, and irregular hours, and watchings, and fears for one who refused to be guided; night-watchings for one who came late, and brought sorrow in his coming; till, finally, came a darker hour, and a coffin, and a funeral, and a grave, and long weariness and brokenheartedness, — a sickness of the heart that had lasted for years, that had blanched the hair, and unstrung the nerves, and made the once pretty, sprightly little woman a wreck. All these pictures rose up silently before Miss Dorcas’s inner eye as she busied herself in wiping the china, and there was a touch of pathos about her unaccustomed efforts to awaken her sister’s slumbering sensibility to finery, and to produce a diversion in favor of the new cap.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 399