PUDDING AND PIES.
“THERE’S that dreadful little Pancake ringing again. She comes every
morning, Preston, and you must stop it,” said cousin Lucy, waving away
half a dozen flies from the sugar-bowl, with as much vehemence as she
could throw into her napkin.
“Troublesome flies,” said Preston, without heeding his cousin’s
request. “They say a barn-swallow will eat a thousand a day; wish _we_
had a barn-swallow.”
Lucy went to the door a trifle crossly, bread-knife hard in hand, as if
she meant to charge it at the foe.
“And _now_ what do you want?”
For it seemed as if the little gipsy must have exhausted all the
errands that could possibly be thought of.
“Could I borry a piece o’ stovepipe—’bout _so_ long—I’ll fetch it back
to morry.”
“A piece of stovepipe!”
Lucy would not have smiled on any account.
“Yes, mammy’s sick, and our stovepipe’s rusted off. I’ll fetch it home
to morry.”
And before Lucy had time to prevent it, the little try-patience had
rushed past her, and effected an entrance into the breakfast room. And,
as if her own presence were not unwelcome enough, she was followed by a
large, formidable-looking bee.
“Don’t you be scared,” said Pecielena, as the children all screamed.
“I’ll catch him and kill him.”
“No, no,” cried Mary. “I belong to the society for cruelty to animals.
I can’t let you kill him.”
But Pecy had already caught the bee and crushed him against the
table-cloth with the broom-handle.
Sadie looked at Lucy, the “lady abbess,” to see how long she meant to
allow such behavior to go on; but Lucy had become discouraged, and was
retreating to the kitchen.
“I must go and pick over the rice for dinner. I suppose _you_ don’t
know, Sadie, whether three pounds will make pudding enough for six
people?” said she, putting the rice in the only kettle the house
afforded, and pouring over it two quarts of water. No, Sadie did not
know.
The unbidden guest, forgetting that her cow had not been milked, stood
looking on, as saucy as an English cuckoo in a hedge-sparrow’s nest.
It would not appear that she intended the least harm; she was simply a
little half-starved, wild creature, and the sight of the raisins gave
her a hungry longing, which Lucy was unable to comprehend, or she would
have admired the poor thing’s self-denial in not teasing, and would
have given her gladly a handful of the coveted sweets.
Camp Comfort, with its merry, careless child-tenants and abundance of
food, seemed an earthly paradise to wretched little Pecy. She had never
ventured so boldly into any other house, even the humble Browns and
Pecks, as into this one, which had no responsible grown people in it;
nobody really old enough to command her to leave.
“Is this here your dog, Lucy?” said she, caressing the pug. “His nose
turns up some like yours. I never see such a queer dog.”
“And I never saw such a queer girl,” said Lucy, reddening. “Are you the
protector of this family, Preston Gray? General Townsend told mother he
felt easy about us with you here; but if you haven’t authority enough
to keep tramps away, perhaps we’ll have to call on Bert or Jack.”
This sarcasm aroused Preston.
“Miss Pancake,” said he solemnly, “do you see this gun?” taking it
from the corner. “Perhaps you may not know that I am a soldier in the
regular army; and when people do not behave well it is my business to
shoot them.”
Pecielena was a shrewd child, and only laughed.
“You wouldn’t _dass_ shoot me,” said she confidently.
“Ah, you needn’t be so sure of that. Wait and see. Now I’m going to
ask you six questions; and do you step toward the door every time you
answer one. And if you are not out of the door by the time the last one
is answered——”
The sentence was left unfinished, but there was an awful gleam of
spectacles, a threatening wave of the gun, and Preston’s appearance was
most military and imposing.
“Do you know how to read, little girl?”
“No.”
“Then step.”
She slowly obeyed.
“Do you ever go to church?”
“No.”
“Do your father and mother ever go to church?”
“No,”—moving forward now of her own accord, with some haste toward the
door.
“O you’re gone, are you? Well, little girl, you needn’t call again. Do
you hear?”
[Illustration: BUTTONS PREPARING TO “COOK A PIE.”—PAGE 138.]
“There, that’s splendid,” said Sadie admiringly. “To think what a
little heathen she is! Do you suppose it’s safe to live near such
people?”
“We shan’t have any more trouble from _her_, I’m thinking,” returned
the “protector of the family,” feeling that he had vindicated his
character.
But little Mary was not quite satisfied. This behavior was hardly in
accordance with the daily precepts and examples of her parents, who had
taught her that she ought to pity and try to help the poor, ignorant,
and unfortunate.
She pondered on the subject at intervals all the morning, as she sat in
the hammock, amusing her devoted little friend, Kittyleen. Pecy looked
as if she never had a good time in her life. Was it fair to drive
her away? Could she herself do anything for the child? If so, what, and
how?
Fanny and Blanche were off in the meadow making daisy-wreaths as a
pretty surprise for to-night’s ice-cream party. In the house Sadie
arranged pond lilies in a cracked bowl, repeating to Preston the
stanza,—
“From the reek of the pond, the lily
Has risen in raiment white,
A spirit of air and water,
A form of incarnate light.”
“Sadie is too hifalutin’ for anything,” thought Lucy, who had the rice
pudding on her hands. Ah, that pudding!
Lucy had forgotten, or did not know, that rice has a habit of swelling.
Before long it had risen to the top of the kettle and was overflowing
it, like an eruption of lava down the sides of a volcano.
“Oh, look, look,” cried Sadie, “it’s like the genius in the Arabian
Nights, that flew out when the bottle was opened, and grew to a great
steam giant!”
“Can’t stop to talk fairy stories. Get the spider!” cried Lucy.
She filled the spider from the bubbling, dripping kettle.
“The pudding dish! Big platter!”
The white-hot spirit of the mischievous rice was just beginning his
frolic.
“The pitcher!”
The steam giant was still rising, growing, dancing ever upward.
“Sugar bowl! Pour out the sugar on the table! All the plates.—O, dear,
all the cups and saucers!”
“Don’t you want the teaspoons? Here, let’s stop this nonsense,” said
Preston. And coming to the rescue, he swung off the kettle and poured
the bewitched contents upon the grass at the back door.
“Oh, you extravagant creature! You’ve wasted three pounds of rice and
half a pound of raisins, and killed the grass!”
Preston gazed in inward consternation at the ruinous white flood; but
he was not going to confess his sins to cousin Lucy.
“That’s the proper way to serve rice pudding,” said he. “Always serve
hot, and make it go as far as you can. Now let the children pick out
the plums.”
“But our pudding’s gone.”
“I’ll cook a pie,” replied he, with alacrity. “I cooked ’em last summer
at the lakes fit to set before a king.”
Laughing was the very mainspring of life at Camp Comfort; but the
girls had never laughed yet as they did now, to see Buttons in full
swing preparing to “cook a pie.” Lucy kindly summoned every member
of the family to witness the performance. The taking-off of his coat,
the pinning-up of his sleeves, the tying-on of an apron, the swathing
of the head in a towel, the cleansing of hands with sand-soap and
nail-brush; and Buttons was ready for action.
“Now,” said he, drawing a long breath and looking authoritatively
through his spectacles. “Now, bring on the flour and things, and butter
some plates.—Lard, butter, knife, spoon.—Where’s your milk? No, water
won’t do. I prefer milk. Bring me half a cup.—Where’s your salt?”
He carefully measured out a half-cup of equal parts of butter and lard,
and rubbed it into a pint of flour.
“Now, cream tartar and soda.”
The girls brought them with a growing feeling of respect. He stirred
two teaspoonfuls of cream tartar into the flour, dissolved half as
much soda in the milk, mixed all together rapidly, and rolled the mass
on the board.
“I hope ’twill be better than the pie we had yesterday, that was baked
in the spider,” said Mary, not heeding Lucy’s frown.
“How tough that was,” said Blanche. “What did Lucy put in to make it so
tough?”
“She didn’t put in much of anything,” replied Fanny. “Jack said you
could have cut it with a pair of scissors, ’twas so thin.”
“Hush, children, the rest of us couldn’t have done as well,” said
Sadie, leaning over the table, watching Preston’s efforts. “What shall
you fill it with?”
The question startled him: he had not thought of the inside of the pie.
“Oh, almost anything,” said he, carefully trimming the edges of the
lower crust.
“Are there any lemons?”
“No, Jack used a dozen yesterday for one pitcher of lemonade,” said
Lucy.
“But we have some very green apples if the children haven’t eaten them
all.”
“Fly round then and slice ’em.”
“How impertinent!” cried the whole family. “Take notice, _this_ is the
way Buttons makes pies.”
But they “flew round,” all five of them, and picked some very green
currants off the bushes in the back yard with merry good will.
“Now, behold me fill my pies,” said Preston, slowly sifting a cup of
sugar over the bottom crust before he put in the currants.
“May I behold, too?” asked the grocer, who stood at the side door. He
had heard the laughing half a mile away.
“Yes, sir, this is my cooking school.”
“Well, go on with your lecture. You make a real pretty picture
standing there with that rig on.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, I was about to remark, it’s truly lamentable,
the ignorance of girls and women! They put the currants in first and
_then_ the sugar, and the juice spills out all over the oven.—See, here
is the oven ready. What have you been thinking of, girls, to let that
fire go out?”
“You see how he acts, Mr. Fowler,” said Sadie, as Lucy put wood in the
stove.
“But, as I was saying—sugar first, _then_ currants, and the juice stays
in. Bring some water to pour in, Flaxie.”
“Can’t I hire you to come and show my women folks how to cook?” said
the grocer, laughing at the notion of placing sugar below currants.
But there was reason in the “notion,” as the event proved, for the
juice did “stay in,” and the pie would have done Preston great credit,
if it had not been trifled with in the oven, like all the Camp Comfort
baking. But it was far superior to Lucy’s spider-pie, and a vote was
taken on the spot for a change of cooks.
Preston was jubilant, for was not this his second victory for the day?
The weather was sultry, and after dinner everybody would gladly have
reclined in the hammocks under the shade, if Lucy had not suddenly
remembered that ice-cream always suggests cake. Lemon-cake was made and
burned; but the ice-cream party did not come off on account of a heavy
shower which rose about six o’clock.
In the midst of it arrived the incorrigible Pecielena Pancake with a
new errand. Preston was chagrined. Had he inspired her with no real awe
after all?
“Have you got an ambril?”
An umbrella was useless now, for she was thoroughly soaked and dripping
with rain.
“I want to take it to the paster,” said she, “so’s to keep the _milk_
dry!”
“Go a-_way_!” exclaimed the campers in concert; and at a signal from
Preston they all clapped hands, and pursued the astonished little
vagrant to the door. Everybody but Mary. Somehow, as she looked at the
poor, wild creature, with the bright, restless, unhappy eyes, a feeling
of pity moved her.
“Be ye kindly affectioned one toward another.” Did that mean tramps,
too? She had been thinking of it all day. She was not sure. Of course,
nobody wanted gipsy children coming around to bother, especially after
they had been forbidden the house; and Preston was a very, very good
boy, every body said so, and not likely to do anything cruel. Still,
it could not be denied that Pecy Pancake was a human being, and that it
was raining. On the whole, Mary thought she had done well not to help
“clap her out.”