CAPS AND APRONS
"Now, young ladies, please come to order," said Dorothy, rapping
on the table with a wooden spoon, which seemed the most appropriate
symbol of office for the president of a cooking club.
It was a day in late November, and the afternoon sun streaming
in at the windows of the Ellsworth kitchen smiled broadly at the
sight of six cooks in caps and aprons. This was the first working
meeting of the club, and as the girls had thought it better to make
six the membership, Katharine French and Alice Stevens had been
invited to join.
"Usually," continued Dorothy, in an official manner which she
flattered herself was in close imitation of the president of the
Glenloch Fortnightly Club, "Usually we shall choose our dishes
beforehand and bring the materials for making them. As this is the
first meeting, Mrs. Ellsworth is going to let us use her materials,
and she thinks that we'd better get up a simple supper for our
first attempt. I thought that popovers, scalloped oysters, baked
apples, cake, chocolate and some simple dessert would be nice, and
after this you can make things as elaborate as you like."
Dorothy looked so dignified and important as she finished her little
speech that irrepressible Charlotte longed to tickle her or rumple
her hair, two things that the neat Dorothy loathed. As she couldn't
she only said meekly, "Please, ma'am, are we to choose which we'd
rather cook? If we are, I prefer the apples."
"So do I," laughed Katharine; "you're not any lazier than I am,
Charlotte."
"We'll have to write the names of things on slips of paper and draw
for them," said Dorothy, "and no matter what you get you must do
the best you can with it."
"My, but you are stern, Dolly," said Betty admiringly. "I should
probably have let them spend the next half hour wrangling about
what they'll do."
Charlotte, who had been made secretary, wrote the names of the
various dishes on slips of paper and put them in the hat which Betty
brought her. Then with a low bow she presented the hat to Dorothy,
who drew the slip on which was written "scalloped oysters."
"How noble of you, Dolly, to draw the one we should all have hated,"
cried Ruth. "Oh, I'm not sure but this is just as bad," she added,
as the slip marked "dessert" fell to her lot. Betty found herself
staring at the word "popovers," while Katharine and Alice drew cake
and chocolate respectively.
"Girls, I don't need to tell you that 'the lame and the lazy
are always provided for,'" cried Charlotte, as she triumphantly
flourished the "baked apple" slip. "I will prepare my portion of
the feast and then read a while."
"Oh, I forgot to say," said Betty, "that mother suggested that
the one who baked the apples might even up things by building the
fire. She said one of the first duties of a cook was to know how
to manage the stove."
"I wouldn't have believed it of you, Betty," groaned Charlotte, as
she made up a face. "I don't know anything about building a fire.
How under the sun shall I begin?"
"Read this and grow wise," answered Betty, thrusting an open cookbook
under Charlotte's nose. "That tells you just how to do it."
Each of the other girls having brought a cookbook buried herself in
it for the time being, while Charlotte, left to her own resources,
proceeded to build the fire. First she read with great care the
directions in the cookbook, and then looked rather helplessly at
the stove.
"This is the front draught, of course," she murmured, "but where's
the oven draught? Betty, do tell me where the oven draught is on
this stove."
Betty flew over from the further side of the big kitchen, and pointed
out the oven draught. Then she absorbed herself again in her book
so completely that Charlotte hadn't the courage to ask for further
instructions. She noticed a damper in the stovepipe, and wanted to
ask about that, but pride forbade. "I'll do this alone or perish in
the attempt," she said to herself with noble courage, and proceeding
on the principle that she ought to change the existing condition
of everything, she turned the one in the stovepipe and speedily
forgot all about it. Then she put in a layer of twisted papers, laid
the kindlings artistically, with air-spaces between the sticks,
and before putting on the covers stood off to admire her work.
She looked around for sympathy, but the girls were ail absorbed in
their books, and no one gave her a glanee. Then with the sigh of
unappreciated genius, she covered the stove, and touched a match
to the papers through the front grate.
The kitchen was very still except for the crackle of the fire.
The sunshine came like a shower of gold through the west window,
glorifying everything it touched. Charlotte, feeling extremely
capable, began with great energy to add an extra polish to the
apples which she was to bake.
Suddenly Dorothy raised her head and sniffed the air. "I smell
smoke. Oh, Charlotte, look at your stove," she cried.
Even as she spoke the smoke poured out around the covers in great
volume. Clouds of smoke forced their way through hitherto unsuspected
cracks.
"Open the windows," gasped Betty, whom the stinging wood smoke
almost blinded.
"Perhaps I turned the dampers wrong," cried Charlotte, making a
dash for the stove, and turning the oven draught. The result was
disastrous, for the smoke rolled out with still greater violence,
only to be met and beaten back into the room by the air from the
windows. Charlotte turned the oven draught again, and then stood
helpless.
Suddenly Betty bethought herself of what her mother had told her.
"There's a damper in the stovepipe," she choked, covering her
streaming eyes with one hand, and waving the other wildly in the
air. "Did you touch that?"
"Yes," gasped Charlotte.
"Well, turn it the way it isn't, quick," and while Charlotte
reached for the damper, Betty groped her way to the sink to soothe
her afflicted eyes with cold water.
Coughing, and with smarting eyes, the girls stood around, while
as if by magic the clouds of smoke diminished to tiny streams and
then died away altogether.
"How beautifully simple," said Charlotte grimly. "That makes me
feel small."
"It wasn't your fault," said Betty. "Mother told me to be sure to
remember that that damper in the pipe wasn't to be changed, and of
course I had to forget."
Charlotte lifted the cover, and surveyed the fire with a critical
though somewhat humbled air. Then after letting it burn up a little
she put in a goodly supply of coal and went back to her apples.
"The cake and the apples must go in as soon as the oven is hot,"
said Dorothy, emerging from her cook-book. "That will leave the
oven free for my oysters and Betty's popovers."
Ruth gave a squeal of delight. "I've found a recipe for a pudding
that sounds perfectly fascinating, and the cooking can be done on
the top of the stove, which is an advantage."
"I can't decide between a chocolate cream cake and a cake with
caramel filling," wailed Katharine, who loved rich, mushy, sweet
things.
"Goodness, child," said Dorothy, with that superior air which she
so often affected, "don't try anything so hard the first time.
Find something simple."
"Crushed again," muttered Katharine, only loud enough for Ruth to
hear. "Dolly loves to manage everything. You mustn't even breathe
hard, girls, for ten minutes, and don't walk so heavily," she said
as she carried her cake pan across the kitchen and deposited it
in the oven. "This cake is going to be simply dandy, and my heart
will be broken if it falls."
"Better not leave the oven door open so long then," said Betty,
who having nothing to do for the moment was interesting herself in
her neighbor's affairs.
Katharine, who had been absorbed in gazing proudly at her creation,
started guiltily, and the oven door slipping from her fingers shut
itself with a crash that filled her with horror.
"Do you suppose that old door's spoiled it?" she said in a despairing
voice. "I don't see how it can fall, though, till it has begun to
rise," she added hopefully to Betty as she went back to the table
to clear away her cooking dishes.
"Just give a look at my apples when you're looking at your cake,
will you, Kit?" asked Charlotte, who had produced a small book from
some mysterious hiding-place, and was slipping off into a comer
with it.
"That isn't fair," called Dorothy sharply, but Charlotte pretended
not to hear, and Dorothy with a shrug of the shoulders gave her up
as a hopeless case. Dorothy and Charlotte were apt to turn their
sharp edges toward each other, though either would have defended
the other had an outsider interfered.
"Dear me, things look too good to be true," said Ruth a little later
as Katharine took her cake, golden-brown and deliciously light,
from the oven. "It seems as though some one would have to make a
failure of something."
"It won't be my apples," proclaimed Charlotte with great pride.
"Now I call that an artistic piece of cookery; they're not all
mushy and cooked to death, but they've split open just enough to
show that they're done."
"Small credit to you," laughed Alice. "If it hadn't been for Katharine
you wouldn't have come out of your book for the next hour."
"Don't be envious, Al," answered Charlotte sweetly. "Perhaps your
chocolate will be as good as my apples."
"There," said Ruth with a sigh of relief, "now that can cool, and
I'll put the finishing touches on later."
Suddenly the door-bell rang sharply. "You'll have to go to the
door, girls," said Betty, poking her head into the dining-room,
"for there's no one besides us in the house."
There was a murmur of conversation at the door, and then Ruth
came flying into the kitchen with shining eyes and flushed cheeks.
"There's the dearest little old woman at the door, girls," she
said, "with soap and pins and needles to sell, and I'm so sorry
for her because she says she hasn't sold a thing today. And she's
the cleanest-looking old dear you ever saw, and don't you think we
might ask her to stay to supper?"
Ruth stopped for lack of breath, and her face fell as she saw
plainly that both Dorothy and Betty disapproved of her plan. She
started slowly toward the door, wondering how much money she had
in her purse, and whether it would be enough to get the old woman
her supper, when help came from an unexpected quarter. Charlotte,
who at that moment was so completely a Knight of the Round Table
that she could hardly refrain from using the language of chivalry,
and who saw in this instance a chance to bring chivalric ideas into
practical use, said excitedly, "Why not, girls, if she's clean?
She certainly can't run off with the silver with six of us to watch
her."
"She's very respectable looking," pleaded Ruth; "her clothes are
neat, and she looks as though--as though she'd seen better days."
"Mother said she wished we could make our club helpful to some one
besides ourselves," said Betty slowly; "perhaps this is one of the
ways."
"Of course it is," answered Ruth, and was about to make a wild
dash for the door when she remembered that Dorothy was president
and ought to have the deciding voice. "What do you say, Dolly?" she
asked coaxingly. Dorothy frowned. "I don't approve of it a bit,"
she said, "but as you all seem to be against me I won't say anything
more about it." Ruth walked slowly toward the front door, feeling
very undecided, but Charlotte, who had followed her, helped her to
a decision by saying softly, "Go ahead and invite her, Ruth; Dolly
will come round ail right."
Seated in the kitchen the old woman didn't look at all dangerous
even to Dorothy's suspicious eyes. She was dressed neatly in black,
and, though politely urged, refused to take off either bonnet or
shawl. Much conversation with her was impossible, for she was very
deaf and mumbled so in talking that it was hard to understand her.
The girls couldn't help liking the rosy face with its crown of snowy
hair under a black veil, and they felt, too, that gentle glow of
pride which comes of exceeding virtue. The old lady's bright eyes
traveled from one to the other of them as they worked, and occasionally
her whole frame trembled as though with emotion.
"Poor old soul! Perhaps she had daughters of her own," said Alice
in a low voice.
It was impossible for the old woman to have heard, but it seemed
almost as though she had, for just at that moment she sighed deeply,
and drawing from her bag a neatly folded handkerchief wiped her
eyes. Then she settled her spectacles on her nose and looked up
at Ruth with a brave smile. The girls were touched by her courage,
and each resolved privately to buy some of her pins and needles
before she left the house.
At last everything was ready and the girls looked at the table with
pardonable pride. "My, but I'm hungry," sighed Ruth, "and everything
looks so good."
"I don't see why my popovers aren't poppier," said Betty anxiously.
"I thought I followed--Oh, goose! Idiot! What do you think I did?"
she wailed. "I wanted to be sure to have enough, so I doubled the
recipe--but I forgot to double the eggs!"
Betty's despair was so comical that the girls couldn't help laughing,
in spite of the fact that the popovers had not fulfilled the end
and aim of their existence.
"Oh, Betty, to leave out the poppiest part of them," laughed Charlotte;
"now just look at my apples; not a thing left out in cooking those."
The girls shouted again, and the old woman looked around the table
as though wondering what the fun was about.
The supper progressed merrily, and everything, even the unambitious
popovers, tasted good to the hungry cooke. Their guest paid the
highest possible compliment to her hostesses by devouring with
great eagerness everything that was offered to her. After she had
been served three times to scalloped oysters, and had eaten five
popovers and two baked apples, the girls looked at each other in
amazement.
"The poor old thing probably hasn't had a square meal in years,"
said Charlotte softly.
"She'll never be able to walk if she eats ail that cake and pudding
she has on her plate," said Dorothy anxiously, "and that's her
second cup of chocolate. Why, she's got an appetite like--like a
boy."
There was a subdued chuckle from the other end of the table followed
by a laugh which ail the girls recognized. Then the old woman, very
red in the face and very much hampered by her skirts, pushed back
her chair and started for the door.
Quick as a flash Dorothy, looking very determined, stood with her
back against the door. "Guard the other door, girls, and some one
help me here!" she cried. "Now, Joe Bancroft, who helped you get
up this trick?"
Joe, to whom laughter and eating were the main objects of life,
threw back his head and laughed until he choked, and grew so red
in the face that the girls were actually frightened.
"Oh, oh," he gasped at last, "that's done me lots of good. I think
I could eat a little more supper now."
He looked so funny standing there in the neat, black skirt topped
by the respectable bonnet and shawl, the spectacles and white hair,
that the girls went off into shrieks of merriment. Even Dorothy, who
was really angry, couldn't wholly resist the fun of the situation,
but she was sober again in a moment and said sternly, "You haven't
told us yet who are the others. You never got this up all by
yourself, I know."
"Honor forbids me to mention the names of my partners in crime,"
answered Joe with great solemnity. "They will all be glad to know
that you were so kind to a poor old woman--who may have had daughters
of her own," he added with a naughty twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, this is too much. Do let him go, Dolly," begged Charlotte.
"We know well enough that Frank and Bert are in it, and probably
Phil Canfield and Jack."
"No, not Phil and Jack," said Joe quickly, and then groaned inwardly
over his stupidity.
"Thanks. That's all we wanted to know," answered Charlotte with
triumph in her voice.
"That's one for you, Charlotte. You had me there ail right. Now,
ladies, with your kind permission I'll go, leaving you in part
payment for my gorgeous supper my stock in trade."
He drew from his bag and laid solemnly on the table one paper of
pins, one of needles, and a cake of soap. Then, seeing that the
girls at the other door had relaxed their watchfulness, he slipped
past them, through the kitchen and out the back door.
A shout of boyish laughter greeted him, and Dorothy groaned as she
heard it. "Why didn't you keep him, girls? I was going to make him
wash the dishes," she said mournfully.
"It's much nicer to have him out of the way," answered Ruth.
"Besides, I want to taste my pudding and Katharine's cake if that
greedy boy has left any of it."
"Betty's mother will be so pleased to hear that we've begun so
soon to make our club helpful to some one else," observed Charlotte
pensively, as they finished washing the dishes, and the club ended
its first meeting with a burst of laughter.