Chapter 5

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING.

Just as I began to be a wee little bit tired of housework, and to feel that I would like nothing so much as a day with my birds, my fancy-work, and a charming story-book, what should happen but that grandmamma's headache and Aunt Hetty's "misery in her bones" should both come at once.

Tap, tap, tap on the floor above my head in the early dawn came grandmamma's ebony stick.

Veva Fay and Marjorie Downing were both spending the night with me. Veva had slept on the wide, old-fashioned lounge in the corner, and Marjorie in the broad couch with me, and we had all talked till it was very late, as girls always do when they sleep in one room, unless, of course, they are sisters, or at school, and used to it.

I had a beautiful room. It ran half across the front of the house, and had four great windows, a big fire-place, filled in summer with branches of cedar, or bunches of ferns, growing in a low box, and filling the great space with cool green shade, and in winter the delight of the girls, because of the famous hickory fires which blazed there, always ready to light at a touch.

In one corner stood my mahogany desk, above it a lovely picture of the Madonna and Child. Easy-chairs were standing around, and there were hassocks and ottomans in corners and beside the windows. My favorite engraving--a picture representing two children straying near a precipice, fearing no danger, and just ready to fall, when behind them, sweeping softly down, comes their guardian angel--hung over the mantel.

How much pleasure I took in that room, in the book shelves always full, in the pretty rugs and the cool matting and the dainty drapery, all girls can imagine. It was my own Snuggery, and I kept it in the loveliest good order, as mother liked me to.

Tap, tap, tap.

"Goodness!" cried Veva, only half awake.

"What is that? Mice?" said Marjorie, timidly.

"Burglars!" exclaimed Veva.

"Hush, girls!" I said, shaking off my drowsiness. "It's poor grandmamma, and she has one of her fearfulest headaches. It's two weeks since she had the last, so one may be expected about now. The tap means, 'Come to me, quickly.'"

I ran to the door, and said, "Coming, grandmamma!" slipped my feet into my soft knitted shoes, and hurried my gray flannel wrapper on, then hastened to her bedside. I found that grandmamma was not so very ill, only felt unable to get up to breakfast with us, and wanted some gruel made as soon as possible.

"I've been waiting to hear some stir in the house," she said, "but nobody seemed to be awake. Isn't it later than usual, girlie?"

I tiptoed over to grandmamma's mantel, and looked at her little French clock. It _was_ late! Eight, and past, and Hetty had not called us. What could be the matter?

Down I flew to find out what ailed Aunt Hetty. She was usually an early riser.

Before I reached her room, which was on the same floor with the kitchen, I heard groans issuing from it, and Hetty's voice saying: "Dear me! Oh, dear me!" in the most despairing, agonizing tones. Hetty always makes the most of a "misery in her bones."

"What is it, aunty?" I asked, peering into the room, which she _would_ keep as dark as a pocket.

"De misery in my bones, child! De ole king chills! Sometimes I'm up! Sometimes I'm down!"

The bed shook under the poor thing, and I ran out to ask Patrick to go for the doctor, while I made the fire, and called the girls to help prepare breakfast.

First in order after lighting the fire, which being of wood blazed up directly that the match was applied to the kindlings, came the making of the corn-meal gruel.

A tablespoonful of corn meal wet with six tablespoonfuls of milk, added one by one, gradually, so that the meal is quite free from lumps. One pint of boiling water, and a little salt. You must stir the smooth mixture of the meal and milk into the boiling water. It will cool it a little, and you must stir it until it comes to a boil, then stand it back, and let it simmer fifteen minutes.

The doctor was caught by Patrick just leaving his house to go to a patient ten miles off. He prescribed for Aunt Hetty, looked in upon grandmamma, and told me to keep up my courage, I was a capital little nurse, and he would rather have me to take care of him than anybody else he knew, if he were ill, which he never was.

He drove off in his old buggy, leaving three little maids watching him with admiring eyes. We all loved Doctor Chester. "Now, girls," I said, "we must get our breakfast. We cannot live on air."

Marjorie brought the eggs and milk. Veva cut the bread and picked the blackberries. I put the pan on to heat for the omelette, and this is the way we made it:

Three eggs, broken separately and beaten hard--

"In making an omelette, Children, you see, The longer you beat it, The lighter 'twill be,"

hummed Marjorie, add a teaspoonful of milk, and beat up with the eggs; beat until the very last moment when you pour into the pan, in which you have dropped a bit of butter, over the hot fire. As soon as it sets, move the pan to a cooler part of the stove, and slip a knife under the edge to prevent its sticking to the pan; when it is almost firm in the middle, slant the pan a little, slip your knife all the way round the edge to get it free, then tip it over in such a way that it will fold as it falls on the plate.

You should serve an omelette on a hot plate, and it requires a little dexterity to learn how to take it out neatly.

Veva exclaimed, "Oh, Milly, you forgot the salt!"

"No," I explained; "French cooks declare that salt should never be mixed with eggs when they are prepared for omelette. It makes the omelette tough and leathery. A little salt, however, may be sprinkled upon it just before it is turned out upon the dish."

Here is another receipt, which Jeanie copied out of her mother's book:

"Six eggs beaten separately, a cup of milk, a teaspoonful of corn-starch mixed smoothly in a little of the milk, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a dash of pepper, and a sprinkle of salt. Beat well together, the yolks of the eggs only being used in this mixture. When thoroughly beaten add the foaming whites and set in a very quick oven."

It will rise up as light as a golden puff ball, but it must not be used in a family who have a habit of coming late to breakfast, because, if allowed to stand, this particular omelette grows presently as flat as a flounder.

After breakfast came the task of washing the dishes. Is there anything which girls detest as they do this everyday work? Every day? Three times a day, at least, it must be done in most houses, and somebody must do it.

Veva said: "I'd like to throw the dishes away after every meal. If a fairy would offer _me_ three wishes the first one I'd make would be never to touch a dishcloth again so long as I lived."

"Oh, Veva!" exclaimed Marjorie. "Think of the lovely china the Enderbys have, and the glass which came to Mrs. Curtis from her great-grandmother. Would you like a piece of that to be broken if it were yours?"

"No-o-o!" acknowledged Veva. "But our dishes are not so sacred, and our Bridgets break them regularly. We are always having to buy new ones as it is. Mamma groans, and sister Constance sighs, and Aunt Ernie scolds, but the dishes go."

"Mother thinks that the old-fashioned gentlewomen, who used to wash the breakfast things themselves, were very sensible and womanly."

Eva shrugged her plump shoulders, but took a towel to wipe the silver. I had gathered up the dishes, and taken my own way of going about this piece of work.

First I took a pan of hot water in which I had dissolved a bit of soap, and I attacked the disagreeable things--the saucepans and broilers and pots and pans. They are very useful, but they are not ornamental. All nice housekeepers are very particular to cleanse them thoroughly, removing every speck of grease from both the outside and the inside, and drying them until they shine.

It isn't worth while to ruin your hands or make them coarse and rough when washing pots and pans. I use a mop, and do not put my hands into the hot, greasy water. Mother says one may do housework and look like a lady if she has common sense.

I finished the pots and pans and set my cups and saucers in a row, my plates scraped and piled together, my silver in the large china bowl, and my glasses were all ready for the next step. I had two pans, one half-filled with soapy, the other with clear water, and having given my dainty dishes a bath in the first I treated them to a dip in the second, afterward letting them drain for a moment on the tray at my right hand. Veva and Marjorie wiped the silver and glass with the soft linen towels which are kept for these only; next I took my plates, then the platters, and finally the knives. Just as we finished the last dish I heard grandmother's tap, tap on the floor over my head.

There's an art in everything, even in washing dishes. I fancy one might grow fond of it, if only one took an interest in always doing it well.

Perhaps it is because my parents are Friends, and I have been taught that it is foolish to be flurried and flustered and to hurry over any work, but I do think that one gets along much faster when one does not make too much haste.

I do hope I may always act just as mother does, she is so sweet and peaceful, never cross, never worried. Now, dear grandmamma is much more easily vexed. But then she is older and she has the Van Doren headaches.

Tap, tap came the call of the ebony stick. I ran up to grandmamma's room.