what Baxter had done with them. I was inclined to think, however, that
he had sent them to the hotel until arrangements could be made for them
to go somewhere else. But I was able to assure Anita that they had gone
away.
"'Good,' said she. 'I have been thinking about them, and I was afraid
they might find some reason or other to stay about the place, and that
would interfere with my plans. And now I will tell you what servants I
want. I don't want any. I am going to do the work of this house myself.
Now don't open your mouth so wide. There is nothing to frighten you in
what I have said. I am thirty-two years old, and although I am not very
large, I am perfectly strong and healthy, and I cannot imagine anything
in this world that would give me more pleasure than to live in this cot
with you for two weeks, and to cook our meals and do everything that is
necessary to be done. There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of
women who do all that and are just as happy as they can be. That is the
kind of happiness I have never had, and I want it now.'
"I sat upright in my slippery horsehair chair and spoke no word. Surely
Anita had astonished me more than I could possibly astonish her! Before
me sat my beautiful wife: the mistress of my great house in town, with
its butlers and footmen, its maids and its men, its horses, its
carriages, its grand company, and its stately hospitality; the lady of
my famous country estate, with more butlers and footmen and gardeners
and stewards and maids and men and stables and carriages and herds and
flocks, its house-parties of distinguished guests--here was this wife
of mine, so well known in so many fashionable centres; a social star
at home and abroad; a delicately reared being, always surrounded by
servitors of every grade, who had never found it necessary to stoop to
pick up so much as a handkerchief or a rosebud; and here was this
superfine lady of high degree, who had just announced to me that she
intended to cook our meals, to pare our potatoes, to wash our dishes,
and, probably, to sweep our floors. No wonder I opened my mouth.
"'I hope, now,' said Anita, putting her feet out in front of her to
keep herself from slipping off the horsehair sofa, 'that you thoroughly
understand. I do not want any assistance while we are in this cot. I
have sent away Maria, who has gone to visit her parents, and no woman in
service is to come on this place while I am here. I have been studying
hard with Mrs. Parker at the hotel, who seems to be an excellent
housekeeper and accustomed to homely fare, and I have learned how to
make and to cook a great many things which are simple and nutritious; I
have had appropriate dresses made, and Maria has gone to town and bought
me a great variety of household linen, all good and plain, for our
damask table-cloths would look perfectly ridiculous here. I have also
laid in a great many other things which you will see from time to
time.'"
"What a wonderful moment this would have been for a great slump in
stocks!" remarked the Master of the House. "Everything swept away but
the cot and the rill and the dear little wife with her coarse linen and
her determination to keep no servant. The husband of your Anita would
have been the luckiest fellow on Wall Street. If I were working on this
story I would have the blackest of Black Fridays just here."
"'Now, Harold,' said Anita, 'I do not in the least intend to impose upon
you. Because I choose to work is no reason why you should be compelled
to do so.'
"'I am glad to hear that,' said I.
"'I knew you would be,' continued Anita. 'But of course neither of us
will want very much done for us if we live a cotter's life with these
simple surroundings, and so I think one man will be quite enough to do
for you all you will want done. But of course if you think it necessary
to have two I shall not object.'
"'One will be enough,' said I, 'and I will see about sending for him
this afternoon.'
"'I am so glad,' said Anita, 'that you have not got him now, for we can
have our first meal in the cot all by ourselves. I'll run up-stairs and
dress, and then I will come down and do my first cooking.'
"In a very short time Anita appeared in a neat dress of coarse blue
stuff, a little short in the skirts, with a white apron over it.
"'Come, now,' said she, gayly, 'let us go into the kitchen and see what
we shall have for dinner. Shall it be dinner or lunch? Cotters dine
about noon.'
"'Oh, make it lunch,' said I. 'I am hungry, and I do not want to wait to
get up a dinner.' Anita agreed to this, and we went to work to take the
lid off a hamper which she told me had been packed by Mrs. Parker and
contained everything we should want for several days.
"'Besides,' she said, 'that widow woman has left no end of things, all
in boxes and cans, labelled. She must have been a very thrifty person,
and it was an excellent piece of business to buy the house just as it
stood, with everything in it.'
"Anita found it difficult to make a choice of what she should cook for
luncheon. 'Suppose we have some tea?'
"'Very good,' said I, for I knew that was easy to make.
"'Then,' said she, on her knees beside the hamper, with her forefinger
against her lips, 'suppose--suppose we have some croquettes. I know how
to make some very plain and simple croquettes out of--'
"'Oh, don't let us do that,' said I; 'they will take too long, and I am
hungry.'
"'Very well, then,' said Anita. 'Let us have some boiled eggs; they are
quick.'
"I agreed to this.
"'The next thing,' said Anita, 'is bread and butter. Would you like some
hot soda-biscuit?'
"'No,' said I; 'you would have to make some dough and find the soda,
and--isn't there anything ready baked?'
"'Oh, yes,' she answered; 'we have Albert biscuit and--'
"'Albert biscuit will do,' I interrupted.
"'Now,' said she, 'we will soon have our first meal in the cot.'
"'This is a very unassuming lunch,' she said, when we were at last
seated at the table, 'but I am going to give you a nice dinner. If you
want more than three eggs I will cook you some in a few minutes. I put
another stick of wood in the fire so as to keep the water hot.'
"I was in considerable doubt as to what sort of man it would be best
for us to have. I would have been very glad to have my special valet,
because he was an extremely handy man in many ways; but I thought it
better to consider a little before sending for him: he might be
incongruous. I had plenty of time to consider, for Anita occupied nearly
the whole afternoon in getting up our dinner. She was very enthusiastic
about it, and did not want me to help her at all, except to make a fire
in the stove. After that, she said, everything would be easy. The wood
was all in small pieces and piled up conveniently near. As I glanced
around the kitchen I saw that Baxter had had this little room fitted up
with every possible culinary requirement.
"We had dinner a little before eight. Anita sat down, hot, red, but
radiant with happiness.
"'Now, then,' said she, 'you will find I have prepared for you a
high-grade cotter's dinner; by which I mean that it is a meal which all
farmers or country people might have every day if they only knew enough,
or were willing to learn. I have looked over several books on the
subject, and Mrs. Parker told me a great deal. Maria told me a great
many things also. They were both poor in early life, and knew what they
were talking about. First we will have soup--a plain vegetable soup. I
went into the garden and picked the vegetables myself.'
"'I wish you had asked me to do that,' said I.
"'Oh, no,' she answered; 'I do not intend to be inferior to any
countrywoman. Then there is roast chicken. After that a lettuce salad
with mayonnaise dressing; I do not believe cotters have mayonnaise
dressing, nor shall we every day; but this is an exceptional meal. For
the next course I have made a pie, and then we shall have black coffee.
If you want wine you can get a bottle from the wine-hamper; but I shall
not take any: I intend to live consistently through the whole of this
experience.'
"There was something a little odd about the soup: it tasted as if a
variety of vegetables had been washed in it and then the vegetables
thrown away. I removed the soup-plates while Anita went out to get the
next course. When she put the dish on the table she said something had
given way while the fowl was cooking, and it had immediately stuck its
legs high in the air. 'It looks funny,' she remarked, 'but in carving
you can cut the legs off first.'
"I found one side of the fowl much better cooked than the other,--in
fact, I should have called it kiln-dried,--and the other side had
certainly been warmed. The mayonnaise was very peculiar and made me
think of the probable necessity of filling the lamps, and I hoped Baxter
had had this attended to. The pie was made of gooseberry jam, the
easiest pie in the world to make, Anita told me. 'You take the jam just
as it is, and put it between two layers of dough, and then bake it.' The
coffee was very like black writing-ink, and, having been made for a long
time, was barely tepid.
"Strange as it may appear, however, I ate a hearty dinner. I was very
hungry.
"'Now,' said Anita, as she folded her napkin, 'I do not believe you have
enjoyed this dinner half as much as I enjoyed the cooking of it, and I
am not going to wash up anything, for I will not deprive myself of the
pleasure of sitting with you while you smoke your after-dinner cigar on
the front porch. These dishes will not be wanted until to-morrow, and if
you will take hold of one end of the table we will set it against the
wall. There is a smaller table which will do for our breakfast.'
"I drank several glasses of wine as I smoked, but I did not feel any
better. If I had known what was going to happen I should have preferred
to go hungry. I did not tell Anita I was not feeling well, for that
would have made her suffer in mind more than I was suffering in body;
but when I had finished my smoke, and she had gone into the house to
light the parlor lamp, I hurried over to the barn, where Baxter had had
a telephone put up, and I called him up in town, and told him to send me
a chef who could hoe and dig a little in the garden.
"'I thought you would want a man of that kind,' Baxter telephoned. 'Will
Isadore do? He is at your town house now, and can leave by the
ten-o'clock train.'
"I knew Isadore. He was the second chef in my town house, a man of much
experience, and good-natured. I told Baxter to make him understand what
sort of place he was coming to, and to send him on without delay.
"'Do you want him to live in the house?' asked Baxter. And I replied
that I did not.
"'Very good,' said he; 'I will have a tent put up for him near
Baldwin's.'
"When I went to the house I told Anita I had engaged a man.
"'I am glad,' said she; 'but I have just thought of something: I cannot
possibly cook for a man.'
"'Oh, you won't have to do that,' I answered. 'He will live near here,
just the other side of the road.'
"'That will do very well,' said she. 'I do not mind being your servant,
Harold, but I cannot be a servant's servant.'"
"Do you know," said the Master of the House, "as this story goes on I
feel poorer and poorer every minute--I suppose by comparison. In fact, I
do not know that I can afford to light another cigar. But one thought
comforts me," he continued: "if I had been living in that cot with my
wife I would not have had the stomach-ache; so that balances things
somewhat."
The lady smiled.
"The next morning a little after eight o'clock I came down to open the
house, and there, standing by the porch, hat in hand, I saw Isadore.
He was a middle-aged man, large and solid, with very flat feet and a
smoothly shaven face, twinkling eyes, and a benevolent smile. I was very
glad to see him, especially before breakfast. I took him away from the
house, so that Anita might not overhear our conversation, and then I
laid the whole case before him. He was an Alsatian, but his English was
perfectly easy to understand.
"'I know precisely what it is that is wanted,' said he, 'and Mr. Baxter
has made the arrangements with me. It is that madame shall not suppose
anything, but that what she wishes to be done shall be done.'
"'That is the idea,' said I. 'Don't interfere with her, but have
everything done all right.'
"'And I am to be man of all work. I like that. You shall see that I am
charmed. Now I will go and change my clothes.' And this well-dressed man
turned away toward Baldwin's tent.
"When Anita came down the servant I had engaged was at the kitchen door
waiting for orders. He was a plainly dressed man, his whole appearance
neat but humble. 'He looks like a foreigner,' said Anita.
"'You are right,' I replied; 'he is an Alsatian.'
"'And his name?'
"I was about to tell her Isadore, but I stopped myself. It was barely
possible that she might have heard the name of the man who for two years
had composed the peculiar and delicious ices of which she was so fond;
she might even have seen him, and the name might call up some
recollection. 'Did you say your name was Isaac?' I called out to the
man.
"'Yes, sir,' he answered; 'it is that. I am Isaac.'
"'I am going to get breakfast,' said Anita. 'Do you suppose he can build
a fire?'
"'Oh, yes,' I replied; 'that is what he is engaged for--to be the man of
all work.'
"Prompted by curiosity, I shortly afterwards looked in at the kitchen
door. 'While you prepare the table, madame,' the man of all work was
saying, 'shall I arrange the coffee for the hot water?'
"'Do you know how to do it?' she asked.
"'Oh, yes, madame,' the good Isaac replied. 'In a little hut in Alsace,
where I was born, I was obliged to learn to do all things. My father and
my mother had no daughter, and I had to be their daughter as well as
their son. I learn to cook the simple food. I milk the cow, I rub the
horse, I dig in the garden, I pick the berries in the woods.' As he
talked Isaac was not idle; he was busy with the coffee.
"'That is very interesting,' said Anita to me; 'where there are no
daughters among the poor the sons must learn a great deal.'
"I remained at the kitchen door to see what would happen next. There was
a piece of dough upon a floury board, and when Anita went to lay the
table the Alsatian fairly flew upon the dough. It was astonishing to see
with what rapidity he manipulated it. When Anita came back she took the
dough and divided it into four portions. 'There will be two rolls apiece
for us,' she said. 'And now, Isaac, will you put them into the stove?
The back part is where we bake things. We are going to have some lamb
chops and an omelet,' she said to me as she approached the hamper.
"'Ah, madame,' cried the Alsatian, 'allow me to lift the chops. The raw
meat will make your fingers smell.'
"'That is true,' said Anita; 'you may take them out.' And then she went
back to the dining-room.
"Isaac knelt by the hamper. Then he lifted his eyes to the skies and
involuntarily exclaimed: '_Oh, tonnerre!_ They were not put by the ice.'
And he gave a melancholy sniff. 'But they will be all right,' he said,
turning to me. 'Have trust.' The man of all work handled the chops, and
offered to beat the omelet; but Anita would not let him do this: she
made it herself, a book open beside her as she did so. Then she told
Isaac to put it on the stove, and asked if I were ready for breakfast.
As she turned to leave the room I saw her assistant whip her omelet off
the stove and slip on it another one. When or where he had made it I had
no idea; it must have been while she was looking for the sugar.
"'A most excellent breakfast,' said I, when the meal was over; and I
spoke the exact truth.
"'Yes,' said Anita; 'but I think I shall do better after I have had more
practice. I wonder if that man really can wash dishes.' On being
questioned, Isaac declared that in the humble cot in which he was born
he had been obliged to wash dishes; there were no daughters, and his
mother was infirm.
"'That is good; and if any of the plates need a little rubbing up
afterwards I can do them,' said Anita. 'Now we will take a walk over the
place, which we have not done yet.'
"When we returned Isaac was working in the garden. Anita went into the
house, and then the man of all work approached me; he had in his hand a
little piece of red earthenware, which he held up before me in one hand
and touched his cap with the other. 'Sir,' said he, 'is it all pots?
Grass, bushes, everything?'
"'Oh, no,' said I. 'What is the matter?'
"'Excuse me,' said he, 'but everywhere I work in the garden I strike
pots, and I broke this one. But I will be more careful; I will not rub
so deep.'
"For two or three days Anita and I enjoyed ourselves greatly. We walked,
we sat in the shade, we lay in hammocks, we read novels. 'That man,'
said Anita, 'is of the greatest possible assistance to me. The fact is
that, having been taught to do all sorts of things in his infancy, he
does the hard work of the kitchen, and all that is necessary for me to
do is to give the finishing touches.'
"That afternoon, when I saw the well-known chef Isadore--for some years
head cook to the Duke of Oxminster, and willing to accept a second place
in the culinary department of my town house only on account of
extraordinary privileges and emoluments--when I saw this man of genius
coming down the hill carrying a heavy basket which probably contained
meats packed in ice, I began to wonder about two things: in the first
place, I wondered what exceptional remuneration in addition to his
regular salary Baxter had offered Monsieur Isadore in return for his
exceptional services in our cot; and in the second place, I wondered if
it were exactly fair to practise such a variety of deceptions upon
Anita. But I quieted my conscience by assuring it that I was doing
everything for her benefit and happiness, particularly in regard to this
man of all work, who was probably saving us from chronic dyspepsia.
Besides, it was perfectly fair play, for if she had told me she was
going to do all my cooking I never would have come to this cot.
"It was that evening, when we were both in a good humor after a good
dinner, that my wife somewhat disturbed my peace of mind. 'Everything is
going on so smoothly and in such a pastoral and delightful way,' said
she, 'that I want some of our friends to visit us. I want them to see
for themselves how enjoyable such a life as this is. I do not believe
any of them know anything about it.'
"'Friends!' I exclaimed. 'We do not want people here. We cannot
entertain them. Such a thing was never contemplated by either of us, I
am sure.'
"'That is true,' said Anita; 'but things are different from what I
expected. They are ever and ever so much better. And we can entertain
people. We have a guest-room which is fitted up and furnished as well as
ours is. If we are satisfied, I am sure anybody ought to be. I tell you
who will be a good person to invite for the first one--Mr. Rounders.'
"'Rounders!' I exclaimed. 'He is the last man in the world for a guest
in this cot.'
"'No, he is not,' answered Anita. 'He would like it very much indeed. He
would be perfectly willing and glad to do anything you do, and to live
in any way you live. Besides, he told me, not very long ago, that he
often thought of the joys of an humble life, without care, without
anxiety, enough, no more, and a peaceful mind.'
"'Very well,' said I; 'this is your picnic, and we will have Rounders
and his wife.'
"'No, indeed,' said Anita, very emphatically. 'She cannot come anyway,
because she is in Europe. But I would not have her if she were here. If
he comes, he is to come alone. Shall I write him a note, or will you?
There is no time to waste.'
"She wrote the note, and when it was finished Isaac carried it to
Baldwin and told him to have it mailed.
"The more I thought about this invitation the more interested I became
in it. No one could be more unsuited to a cotter's life than Godfrey
Rounders. He was a rich man of middle age, but he was different from any
other rich man with whom I was acquainted. It was impossible to talk to
him or even to be with him for five minutes without perceiving that he
was completely controlled by the money habit. He knew this, but he could
not help it. In business resorts, in society, and in the clubs he met
great capitalists, millionaires, and men of wealth of all degrees,
who were gentlemen, scholars, kind and deferential in manner, and
unobtrusive in dress, and not to be distinguished, so far as
conversation or appearance could serve as guides, from those high types
of gentlemen which are recognized all over the world. Rounders longed to
be like one of these, but he found it to be impossible. He was too old
to reform, and the money habit had such a hold over him that I believe
even when he slept he was conscious of his wealth. He was not a coarse,
vulgar Dives: he had the instincts of a gentleman; but these were
powerless. The consciousness of money showed itself on him like a
perspiration; wipe his brows as he might, it always reappeared.
"He had not been poor in his early life; his father was a man of
moderate means, and Rounders had never known privations and hardships;
but, in his intense desire to make people think that his character had
not been affected by his money, he sometimes alluded to straits and
difficulties he had known in early days, of which he was not now in the
least ashamed. But he was so careful to keep these incidents free from
any suspicion of real hardships or poverty that he always failed to make
the impression he desired. I have seen him quite downcast after an
interview with strangers, and I was well aware what was the matter with
him. He knew that, in spite of his attempts to conceal the domination of
his enslaving habit, these people had discovered it. Considering all
this, I came to believe it would please Rounders very much to come to
stay a few days with us. Life in a cot, without any people to wait upon
him, would be a great thing for him to talk about; it might help to make
some people believe that he was getting the better of his money habit.
"In the middle of the night I happened to wake, then I happened to think
of Rounders, then I happened to think of a story Baxter had told me, and
then I burst out into a loud laugh. Fortunately Anita did not awake; she
merely talked in her sleep, and turned over. The story Baxter had told
me was this: In the past winter I had given a grand dinner, and
Rounders was one of the guests. Isadore's specialty was ices, pastry,
salads, and all sorts of delicate preparations, and he had excelled
himself on this occasion, especially in the matter of sweets. At an
unhappy moment Rounders had said to his neighbor that if she could taste
the sort of thing she was eating as his cook made it she would know what
it really ought to be. An obliging butler carried this remark to
Monsieur Isadore as he was sipping his wine in his dressing-gown and
slippers. The interesting part of this anecdote was Baxter's description
of Isadore's rage. The furious cook took a cab and drove directly to
Baxter's hotel. The wording of Monsieur Isadore's volcanic remarks I
cannot state, but he butchered, cut up, roasted, carved, peppered, and
salted Rounders's moral and social character in such a masterly way that
Baxter laughed himself hoarse. The fiery cook would have left my service
then and there if Baxter had not assured him that if the gilded reptile
ever dined with him again Isadore should be informed beforehand, that he
might have nothing to do with anything that went on the table. In
consequence of this promise, Monsieur Isadore, having withdrawn a
deposit of several thousand dollars from one of the trust companies with
which Rounders was connected, consented to remain in my household.
"'Now, then,' I asked myself, 'how are we going to get along with
Rounders and my man of all work Isaac?' But the invitation had gone, and
there was no help for it. I concluded, and I think wisely, that it would
be unkind to trouble Anita by telling her anything about this
complication, but I would prepare the mind of the good Isaac.
"I went into the garden the next morning, where our man of all work was
gathering vegetables, and when I told him that Mr. Godfrey Rounders was
coming to spend a few days with us the face of Isadore--for it was
impossible at that moment to think of him as Isaac--was a wonderful
sight to see: his brows contracted, his countenance darkened, and his
eyes flashed as though they were about to shoot out lightning. Then all
color, even his natural ruddiness, departed from his face. He bowed
gravely.