THE COOKING CLASS
"We pines have been useful to man and so he has destroyed us."--_The
Murmuring Pine_.
Lydia with parted lips and big, wistful eyes stood quietly beside Miss
Towne.
"What you giving us," said Kent. "Red's my favorite color."
"Red's all right," Olga tossed her head, "but that dress! She ought to
know better. A five cent cheese cloth would have been better'n that."
Kent was truly enamored of pretty Olga but he looked at her angrily.
"You girls make me sick," he grunted and started dodging among the
dancers, across the room to Lydia's side. Olga stood pouting.
"What's the matter?" asked Charlie Jackson.
"Oh, I just said Lydia's dress was a fright and Kent went off mad."
Charlie in turn stared at Lydia.
Kent in the meantime was grinning at Lydia amiably.
"Hello, Lyd! Want to dance?"
"I can't. Don't know how," replied Lydia, despondently.
"Easy as anything. Come on, I'll teach you."
Lydia seized Kent's lapel with fingers that would tremble slightly.
"Kent, I dassn't stir. My back breadth don't match and my skirt hangs
awful."
"Oh, shucks!" replied Kent, angrily, "you girls are all alike. Red's
my favorite color."
"Mine too," said Charlie Jackson at his elbow. "What're you two
arguing about?"
"Her dress," growled Kent, "I don't see anything the matter with it, do
you?"
"Nope, and it's on the prettiest girl in the room too, eh, Kent?"
"You bet," returned Kent, believing, though, that he lied, for Olga was
as pretty as a tea rose.
Lydia blushed and gasped.
"If you won't dance, come on over and have some lemonade," suggested
Kent.
"If I sit in the window, will you bring me a glass?" asked Lydia, still
mindful of the back breadth.
"You take her to the window and I'll get the lemo, Kent," said Charlie.
Kent led the way to the window-seat. "You're a good old sport, Lyd,"
he said. "Charlie'll look out for you. I gotta get back to Olga."
he returned to make peace with the pink organdy. She was very lovely
and Kent was having his first flirtation. Yet before he went to sleep
that night the last picture that floated before his eyes was of a thin
little figure with worn mittens clasped over patched knees and a
ravished child's face looking into his.
Charlie Jackson sat out two whole dances with Lydia. Their talk was of
Adam and of fishing. Lydia longed to talk about Indians with him but
didn't dare. Promptly at ten, Amos appeared at the front door.
Lydia's first party was over. Amos and old Lizzie were charmed with
Lydia's description of it and were sure she had had a wonderful time.
But Lydia felt that the dress had made of the party a hideous failure.
She knew now that she was marked among her mates as a poverty stricken
little dowd whom popular boys like Kent and Charlie pitied.
And yet because life is as kind to us as we have the intelligence to
let it be, it was out of the party that grew slowly a new resolve of
Lydia's--to have some day as pretty hands and as well shod feet as Olga
and Hilda and Cissy, to learn how to make her dresses so that even the
composing of an organdy might not be beyond her.
They saw less of John Levine during the late winter and early spring.
He was running for sheriff on the Republican ticket. He was elected
early in April by a comfortable majority and invited Amos and Lydia to
a fine Sunday dinner in celebration at the best hotel in town. Kent's
father in April was promoted from a minor position in the office of the
plow factory to the secretaryship of the company. The family
immediately moved to a better house over on the lake shore and it
seemed to Lydia that Kent moved too, out of her life.
She missed him less than might have been expected. Her life was so
different from that of any of the children that she knew, that growing
into adolescence with the old bond of play disappearing, she fell back
more and more on resources within herself. This did not prevent her
going faithfully once a month to call on Margery Marshall. And these
visits were rather pleasant than otherwise. Margery was going through
the paper doll fever. Lydia always brought Florence Dombey with her
and the two girls carried on an elaborate game of make-believe, the
intricacies of which were entirely too much for Elviry Marshall,
sitting within earshot.
Elviry Marshall had two consuming passions in life--Margery and gossip.
The questions she asked always irritated Lydia vaguely.
"What wages is your Pa getting now, Lydia?"
"Just the same, Mrs. Marshall."
"Don't you pay Lizzie anything yet?"
"No, Ma'am."
"How much is your grocery bill this month?"
"I don't know."
"Does your Pa ever talk about getting married again?"
"No, Ma'am! Oh, no, Ma'am!"
Lizzie almost exploded with anger when Lydia retailed these questions,
but Amos only laughed.
"Pshaw, you know Elviry!"
"Yes, I know Elviry! She's a snake in the grass. Always was and
always will be."
"She's a dandy housekeeper," murmured Lydia. "I wonder where she
learned. And she isn't teaching Margery a thing. I like Mr. Marshall."
"Dave's a miser. He always was and he always will be," snapped Lizzie.
"I despise the whole kit and biling of them, money or no money. Dave
never earned an honest cent in his life."
"Lots of rich men haven't," replied Amos.
Amos' garden was a thing of beauty. Its trim rows of vegetables were
bordered with sunflowers, whose yellow heads vied in height with the
rustling ears of corn. Amos had a general grudge toward life. He had
a vague, unexpressed belief that because he was a descendant of the
founders of the country, the world owed him an easy living. He had a
general sense of superiority to his foreign born neighbors and to the
workmen in the plow factory.
But in his garden, all his grudges disappeared. Every evening until
dark and every Sunday he worked away, whistling softly to himself. He
always felt nearer to his wife, in the garden. She too had been bred
on a New England farm. He always felt as if the fine orderliness of
the rows was for her.
Lydia greatly preferred weeding the garden to cleaning the house.
Indeed the contrast between the fine garden, the well kept patch of
lawn and the disorderly house was startling. Amos grumbled and
complained but Lydia was in the hobble-de-hoy stage--she didn't care
and she had no one teach her.
One afternoon in August, clad in her bathing suit, now much too small
for her, she was working in the garden, when a voice behind her grunted,
"Eat!"
Lydia jumped and turned. The old squaw of two years before stood
begging. She was as pitifully thin as ever. As she stared at the ugly
old Indian, Lydia's throat tightened. She seemed to feel baby
Patience's fingers clinging to hers in fear.
"Want some vegetables?" she asked, motioning toward the garden.
The squaw nodded eagerly and held up the dirty apron she was wearing.
Lydia began slowly to fill it, talking as she worked.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
The Indian jerked her gray head toward the north. "Big Woods."'
"But that's twenty miles. It must take you a long time to walk it.
Poor thing!"
The squaw shrugged her shoulders. Lydia stared at the toothless,
trembling old mouth, hideous with wrinkles, then at the gnarled and
shaking old hands.
"Haven't you any one to take care of you?"
"All sick--boy sick--man sick--girl sick. All time sick, all time
nothing to eat."
"But won't some other Indian make you a garden, a little one?"
Again the squaw shrugged her shoulders. Her apron was full now. She
produced a string from inside her waist and tying the apron up
bag-like, she slung it over her shoulder. Then she gave Lydia a keen
glance.
"Friend," she said, briefly, and turning, she tottered painfully out of
the gate.
Followed by Adam, Lydia walked thoughtfully out upon the little pier
Amos had built. They had no boat, but Lydia fished and dived from the
pier. It was hard to understand how the Indians with all their rich
pine land could be so poor. She resolved to ask her father and Levine
about it and turned a somersault into the water. She swam about until
tired, then turned over on her back to rest. Lying so a shadow drifted
across her face and she raised her head. A gray birch bark canoe
floated silently beside her. In it, in a gray bathing suit, sat
Charlie Jackson.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Lydia. "How in the world you do it so quietly, I
don't see."
"I saw something that looked like a wet yellow pup in the water, and
stole up on it," grinned Charlie.
"Come on in. It's as warm as suds."
Charlie shot his canoe to the pier and in a moment, was floating beside
Lydia. She took a deep breath, let herself sink and a moment or two
later came up several yards beyond him. He did not miss her for a
moment, then he started for her with a shout. A game of tag followed
ending in a wild race to the pier which they reached neck and neck.
Adam wept and slobbered with joy over their return.
"You certainly are a little sunfish in the water," panted Charlie, as
they sat with feet dangling off the pier.
"Ought to be, I'm in it enough," returned Lydia. "Charlie, there's a
poor old squaw came here to-day. What's the matter with the Indians?
Why don't they work?"
Charlie turned to look at the white child, uneasily. The two made a
wonderful contrast. Charlie was big and bronze and deep chested, with
regular features although they were a little heavy. Lydia, growing
fast, was thinner than ever but cheeks and eyes were bright.
Charlie's mouth twisted in a sneer. "Why don't they work? Why don't
the whites give 'em a chance? Dirty thieves, prowling round like
timber wolves. Ask Dave Marshall. Ask that gumshoeing crook of a
Levine. Don't ask me."
"Levine's not a crook," shouted Lydia. "He's my friend."
The sneer left Charlie's face and he laughed. "Your friend is he,
little sunfish!"
"Yes," said Lydia, furiously. "He gave me Adam," hugging the dog's
ugly, faithful head. He immediately tried to sit in her wet lap. "And
he's done as much for me as my own father."
"If he's your friend," said the Indian gently, "I won't speak against
him to you again."
Lydia instantly was mollified. Charlie was so old and so young! He
was so different from Kent that staring into his deep black eyes, Lydia
suddenly felt his alien race.
"I must go in and dress," she said. "It's time to get supper."
Charlie nodded and untied his canoe. After he was seated with paddle
lifted, he glanced up at her mischievously.
"You're a very nice little girl," he said; "I shall come again. You
may call me Uncle Charlie."
Lydia put out her tongue at him. "Good-by, Uncle!" she called and
raced up the bank to the house.
"Daddy," she said that night at supper, "why should Mr. Marshall and
Charlie Jackson both say Mr. Levine is a crook?"
Amos ate a piece of bread meditatively before replying. "Any man that
goes into politics in this country leaves his reputation behind him.
You and I'll never have a better friend than John Levine."
Lydia nodded. She was only a child after all and still retained
implicit faith in the opinion of those she loved. She went back to
school that fall full of interest and importance. She was a sophomore
now and very proud of the fact that she knew the ropes. Her
arrangement with Billy held for his second year books. With much
pinching of the grocery money, Lizzie had achieved two new galatea
sailor suits and so while she felt infinitely inferior to the
elaborately gowned young misses of her grade, Lydia was not unhappy.
There was a new course of study offered the pupils this year. It was
called the Cookery Course and was elective, not required. Lydia turned
her small nose up at it. She was a good cook, without study, she told
herself. But Miss Towne thought differently. She called Lydia into
her room one day, early in the term. "Lydia, why don't you take the
Cooking Course?"
"I can cook, Miss Towne. I do all our cooking and Daddy says I'm fine
at it."
"I know, my dear, but there are other things connected with the Course
that you need."
"What things?" asked Lydia, a trine obstinately.
"That's what I want you to find out for yourself. Come, Lydia, take my
word for it. It's only two hours a week and no outside study required.
If after a term of it, you still think it's useless, why drop it."
So behold Lydia entered in the Cooking Course which was not popular.
The mothers of the majority of the girls did not, they said, send their
daughters to school to be taught kitchen service. But by the efforts
of Miss Towne and one or two other teachers, a dozen children ranging
in age from fourteen to eighteen, with Lydia as the infant of the
class, were enticed into the bright model kitchen in the basement.
It was not long after this that Lydia said to her father, one evening,
"Daddy, I've got to have twenty-five cents."
Amos looked up from his newspaper. "What for, Lydia? A quarter's a
good deal of money. Takes me pretty near two hours to earn it."
"I know it," answered Lydia, wincing, "but I've got to buy a nail file.
You ought to see my hands compared with the other girls. And you ought
to see dirty finger nails under the microscope. The cooking school
teacher showed us before we made bread, today."
Amos looked at Lydia thoughtfully for a moment, then he carefully
abstracted a quarter from his pocket, laid it on the table and went
back to his reading.
Lydia planned a real feast for Thanksgiving. She negotiated with Billy
Norton for the exchange of two pounds of fudge for a brace of wild
duck. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, she gave the house its usual
"lick and promise" and then started out with her skates to enjoy the
first ice of the season.
She had a glorious morning. There was no snow and the lake had frozen
crystal clear. The air was breathless. As she skated she chanted, to
improvised tunes, bits of verse.
"The stag at eve had drunk his fill
Where danced the moon on Monan's rill
And deep his midnight lair had laid
In lone Glenartney's hazel shade.
"I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he,
I galloped, Dirk galloped, we galloped all three.
'Good speed!' cried the watch as the gate bolts undrew,
'Speed' echoed the wall to us galloping through."
She hunted through Scottish mountains and moors, she whirled from Ghent
to Aix and still high hearted and in the land of visions, took off her
skates and entered the house. She banged the door, then stood for a
moment staring. Elviry and Margery were seated before the living-room
stove, while old Lizzie sat on one edge of Amos' arm chair eyeing the
two belligerently.
Margery was wearing a new fur coat. Her beautiful black eyes looked
out from under a saucy fur-trimmed hat with a scarlet quill on the
side. Elviry wore black broadcloth with fox collar and muff. Lydia,
in a remodeled coat of her mother's, and her old Tam and mended
mittens, recovered from her surprise quickly.
"Hello!" she said. "When did you come? This is the first time you've
ever been in our house, Mrs. Marshall, isn't it?"
"Yes," replied Elviry, "and," with a glance at Lizzie, "I wouldn't be
here now if Mr. Marshall hadn't made me."
"Oh, Mamma," protested Margery, "I wanted to come."
"You hush up, Margery! What I came for is that Mr. Marshall would like
to have the three of you come to our house for Thanksgiving dinner."
Lydia suddenly giggled. "Don't worry, Mrs. Marshall, we can't come.
We're going to have company ourselves for Thanksgiving."
Elviry gave a huge sigh of relief. "Well, that's too bad," she said.
"We're going to have a grand dinner, too."
"So are we," retorted Lydia.
"How's Florence Dombey?" asked Margery. "Mamma, can't I stay and play
with Lydia a while?"
"We'll stay a few minutes," said Elviry, loosing her furs and settling
back in her chair. "It's a real small place, Lizzie, but you can do so
little work now, I s'pose it's just as well."
Lydia had produced a pasteboard shoe box of paper dolls which she gave
to Margery. She cuddled Florence Dombey in her arms and gave one ear
to Margery's question as to the names and personalities of the paper
dolls, the other to Elviry's comments.
"It ain't so small," sniffed Lizzie. "It's bigger'n anything you ever
lived in, Elviry, till Dave sold enough lumber he stole from the
Government to start a bank."
Elviry was not to be drawn into a quarrel. "You always was a jealous
body, Lizzie. That old mahogany belonged to both Amos and his wife's
folks, I've heard. Why don't you get rid of it and buy more of this
here new Mission stuff that's coming in? Though I suppose you'd better
wait till Lydia's old enough to take more interest in keeping the house
clean. Butter's awful high this winter. How much does your grocery
bill average, Lizzie?"
"None of your business," replied Lizzie.
"I don't think Imogen is as good looking as Marion. I'd rather have
Marion marry Prince Rupert, then these can be their children," Margery
murmured on.
"Land, Lizzie, don't be so cross," said Elviry. "I suppose you've
heard the talk about John Levine? He's getting in with that half breed
crowd up on the reservation that the Indian agent's such friends with.
They say Levine's land hungry enough to marry a squaw. He's so dark, I
wouldn't be surprised if he had Indian blood himself. Land knows
nothing would surprise me about him. They say he's just naturally
crooked."
Lydia and Florence Dombey suddenly stood in front of Elviry.
"Don't you say such things about Mr. Levine," said Lydia slowly, cheeks
bright, eyes as blue as Florence Dombey's.
"Well!" exclaimed Elviry, beginning to pull her furs up, "I don't seem
to be able to please you two with my conversation, so I'll be going.
Margery, get up off that dirty floor. I never cared much about Amos'
wife, she was too proud, but at least she was clean. She'd turn over
in her grave if she knew what this house looked like. Come, Margery,
the horse will be cold, standing so long."
Lizzie opened her mouth to speak but Lydia shook her head, and the two
stood in silence, watching the departure of the visitors. When the
door had closed Lizzie burst forth in an angry tirade, but Lydia only
half listened. She looked slowly around the living-room, then walked
into the dining-room and thence into the kitchen. She opened the
pantry door and stared at the dust and disorder, the remnants of food,
the half washed dishes. Suddenly she thought of the shining and
orderly kitchen in the High School basement. Supposing the cooking
teacher should come out to supper, sometime! Lydia had asked her to
come.
She came slowly back into the living-room. Old Lizzie was replenishing
the stove, still muttering to herself. Lydia observed for the first
time that her apron was dirty. Thinking it over, she could not recall
ever having seen Lizzie with a clean apron. A deep sense of shame
suddenly enveloped Lydia.
"Oh, I wish some one had taught me," she groaned. "I wish mother had
lived. Everybody has to go and die on me! I suppose Lizzie and Dad'll
be next. Adam helps to keep the house dirty. There's dog hair
everywhere."
"Don't you get worked up over Elviry Marshall, child," said Lizzie.
"I hate her," exclaimed Lydia, "but what she said about the house is
true. Anyhow, I've learned how to clean pantry shelves, so here goes."
She tied one of Lizzie's aprons round her neck, pushed a chair into the
pantry and began her unsavory task. It was dusk when she finished and
led Lizzie out to observe the shiny, sweet smelling orderliness of the
place.
"Land, it does make a difference! If the rheumatiz didn't take all the
ambition out of me, I'd keep it that way for you," said the old lady.
"I'll do it, every Saturday. Gosh, I'm tired!" groaned Lydia, throwing
herself on the living-room couch. "Lizzie, give me some of your mutton
tallow to rub on my hands. The cooking teacher says it's fine for
hands."
Lydia lay in the twilight, watching the coals glow in the base burner,
while the aroma of the baked beans and brown bread Lizzie was tending
in the kitchen floated in to her. Adam lay on the floor by the stove,
where he could keep one drowsy eye on her every motion. She was
thinking of her mother and of little Patience. She could think of them
now without beginning to tremble. She tried to picture every detail of
her mother's face. They had no picture of her nor of the baby, and
Lydia was afraid she would forget. She wondered if they were together,
if they knew how hard she was trying to obey her mother's injunction to
"make something" of herself. "Be a lady!" "Never be coarse." There
was nobody to show her things, she thought. How could she ever learn
to be a lady? "If I believed in praying any more, I'd pray about lots
of things," she thought, sadly. "But either there isn't any God, or
else He don't believe in prayer, Himself. Gee, supper smells good.
I'm awful hungry. I wonder why Mrs. Marshall hates me so. I suppose
because I'm such a common kid and she still thinks I almost drowned
Margery. And I don't believe a word she says about Mr. Levine, either.
Hateful old beast! If I believed in prayer, you bet I'd tell God a few
things about her."
The highly satisfactory Thanksgiving feast was eaten and praised. The
dishes were washed and set away in the immaculate pantry, and Amos and
John Levine were smoking by the fire.
"Seems to me this room looks all slicked up," said Levine.
Amos nodded. "Lydia's coming along. Says the cooking school teacher
told her to sprinkle wet tea leaves over the carpet before sweeping to
keep down the dust. Place was like a cyclone this morning for an hour,
but the result pays. She's growing like her mother."
"She's only a child, and small for her age, at that," said John. "It's
a shame for her to work so hard."
"I know it," answered Amos, "but what can I do? On a dollar and a half
a day--I swan--"
There was a rap on the door. Lizzie admitted Dave Marshall and Margery.
"Out for a tramp as a digester," explained Dave. "Came to call on my
friend Lydia. I ain't seen her for ages."
He and Levine nodded to each other. Amos shook hands and Dave kissed
Lydia, catching a dark scowl on Levine's face as he did so.
"Let's play paper dolls," said Margery, as soon as she had pulled off
her coat.
"You play 'em," replied Lydia, "I'm awful tired."
"Why should a baby like you be tired?" inquired Marshall, pulling her
to his side as he seated himself in Amos' arm chair.
"If you'd tasted our dinner," said Amos, "you'd know why she and Lizzie
should be half dead."
"I wish I could 'a' tasted it," replied Marshall. "Have a smoke,
friends?"
Amos took a cigar but Levine refused.
"Come, John, come," said the stout banker, banteringly. "This is a
legal holiday and you and I at least agree on Lydia. Let's stop war
for the day, eh?"
Levine's sallow face hardened, then he caught Lydia's blue gaze on him
as she stood beside Marshall. It was such a transparent, trusting
gaze, so full of affection, so obviously appealing to him to "be nice,"
that in spite of himself he grinned and took a cigar.
Amos settled back with a sigh of satisfaction. He enjoyed company and
had had no one but John since his wife's death.
"Looks as if the country'd go Republican next fall," he said by way of
starting a conversation.
"I don't see why," returned Marshall, who was a Democrat.
"Folks are sick of Democratic graft," said Levine.
"And Republicans think it's their turn, eh?" inquired Marshall. "Well,
maybe it is, maybe it is!"
Amos laughed genially. "Satisfied with your share, Dave?"
"Got my eye on just one more little mite. Just one little mite, then
I'm through," chuckled Marshall.
"Then you good Republicans can get your feet into the trough."
"Co-ee! Lydia!" came a call from the lake shore.
Lydia ran to the kitchen door. Charlie Jackson and Kent were skating
up to the bank.
"Come out for a while," cried Kent.
"I can't. I've got company. Come on up and get warm," returned Lydia.
The two boys slipped off their skates and came up to the cottage. Kent
needed no introduction, and Lydia made short work of Charlie by saying
to the assemblage at large, "This is Charlie Jackson. Come on up by
the stove, boys."
The boys established themselves on the couch back of the baseburner.
"Hello, Marg," said Kent. "What you doing?"
"Paper dolls," returned Margery from her corner, without looking up.
Charlie Jackson stared at the beautiful little black head bent over the
bright colored bits of paper with interest.
Amos took up the interrupted conversation. "If we could get a
Republican Congress, that block o' pine and black loam twenty miles
north would be given to its rightful owners."
"Meaning the full bloods, I suppose," said Levine with a short laugh.
"Yes--full blooded whites," returned Amos.
Charlie Jackson suddenly threw back his head and rose.
"I'm a full blood Indian," he said, quietly. The three men looked at
him as if they saw him for the first time.
"Well, what of it?" asked Marshall, shortly.
"This of it," said Charlie, tensely, "that you whites with your
Constitution and your Declaration of Independence are a lot of liars
and thieves."
Marshall turned purple, but John Levine spoke quickly. "Easy there, my
boy! You're talking of things you don't understand."
"Oh, but he does," interrupted Lydia eagerly. "'Governments derive
their just powers from the consent of the governed.' We had it in
school. It must mean Indians too."
John Levine laughed. "There you have it. And Charlie is right, we are
liars and thieves, but we have to be. Might is right in this world."
"Speak for yourself, Levine," cried Marshall.
"Levine!" exploded Charlie. "Are you Levine? You're the man then that
my sister--" his voice rose to a shout. "I'll beat the face off of you
right now."
And he made a sudden spring for the astonished Levine.