THE FEAST.
Pondering discontentedly over the perplexities of life, a habit she had
allowed herself to indulge in quite frequently of late, one day not long
after the final exit of the once interesting but now obnoxious "C,"
Nattie suddenly became aware of a pair of merry brown eyes, belonging to
a fine-looking young gentleman, observing her critically, and with
apparently no intention of discontinuing their scrutiny. At which, in
her present state of temper, Nattie turned very red and very angry. "I
am not on exhibition," she thought, indignantly, and rising
majestically, went towards him with the curt inquiry,
"Did you wish to send a message, sir?" The young gentleman hesitated,
and appeared slightly embarrassed, but did not take his eyes from her
face, nevertheless.
"I merely wished to ask the tariff to Washington," he replied, at
length.
"Forty cents," Nattie answered, shortly.
"Thank you," he said, but without moving, and after a moment, as if
desirous of opening a conversation, he continued, smiling, "I hardly
think I will send a message to-day; I presume you will not object to
being spared the trouble?"
Nattie, having been quarreling all day with intangible somethings, was
rather glad than otherwise to find a real object upon which she could
vent the unamiability resulting from her surplus discontent. The young
man's evident desire to talk more than circumstances warranted, was
displeasing to her, and she rejoined very stiffly,
"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," and turned away.
With an amused smile, he looked at the back thus presented to his view,
opened his lips to speak, hesitated, and finally walked away. Nattie,
looking after him out of the corners of her eyes, saw him glance back as
he opened the door, and had a remorseful feeling that perhaps she had
been crosser to him than he really deserved, for he was certainly very
fine-looking. But what was done could not be undone, and with no
expectation of ever seeing him again, she dismissed the matter from her
mind.
The best, perhaps the only really pleasant part of Nattie's life now,
was her evenings, passed almost invariably with Cyn. Indeed, Cyn seemed
to be a magnet, around which all gathered--Quimby, although, of course,
Cyn herself was not his chief attraction--Celeste Fishblate, who
determinedly pushed herself into an intimacy, and Jo Norton, who, had it
not been for the fact so loudly proclaimed by himself, of his having no
sentiment in his soul, would have been suspected of being on the road to
falling in love with Cyn, so strangely was he attracted to her company.
But this, of course, was impossible for _him_!
"That will not do, dear," Cyn remarked, when Nattie related her little
adventure with the young gentleman. "Do you know you have been in a
dreadful state of mind ever since 'C' intruded his personality?"
Nattie colored a little as she replied, discontentedly, "Oh, it isn't
_that_, I assure you; the truth is, I am ambitious, Cyn. I suppose I
forgot it, slightly, while I was so interested in 'C;' but I cannot be
content with a mere working on from day to day, in the same old routine,
and nothing more."
Cyn looked at her scrutinizingly, as she asked, "But in what particular
way are you ambitious? to be rich, or what?"
"Oh! not for money!" Nattie answered, with a slight contempt for that
necessary and convenient article. "I am ambitious for fame! I want to be
a writer; but when I think of the obstacles in my way to an opening,
even, in that direction, I am daunted. I have attacks of energy, it is
true, but I fear it is fitful; it comes and goes."
"I understand," Cyn replied, with more than wonted seriousness. "Your
ambition is great enough to render you useless and discontented, but you
need something to stimulate your energy, else it will waste itself in
idle dreams. Perhaps love may come to be that motive power; perhaps--"
and a shade crossed her sunny face--"some great disappointment."
There was a moment's silence, Nattie pondering thoughtfully on these
words; and then Cyn continued,
"But in the meantime, since you can at present accomplish nothing, why
not get all the enjoyment you can out of life, as it goes? So, when the
opportunity comes, and you seize it, you will not have to look back on
years wasted in vain longings for the then unattainable. _That_ is my
philosophy--and I, too, am ambitious."
"Your philosophy is cheery, at least," said Nattie, smiling. "But I am
afraid it is very hard for ambitious people to take life easy: and that
is not all of my troubles," she continued, gayly, "I can't get anything
good to eat!"
"Poor child," said Cyn, with mock seriousness, "this _is_ coming from the
sublime to the ridiculous. What is the cause of the lamentable fact?"
"Oh! I am so tired of both boarding-houses and restaurants. In the
former they never have what one likes--and ah! such steak!--while in
the latter you have to pick out all the cheap dishes, or ruin yourself
at a meal."
Cyn laughed.
"I assure you I can appreciate your feelings, from sad experience! I,
myself, am positively longing for a nice sirloin steak." Then, a sudden
thought striking her, "I will tell you what we will do, Nat, we will
have a little feast!"
"A feast?" repeated Nattie, not exactly comprehending.
"Yes--I have a little gas stove--low be it said, lest Mrs. Simonson hear
and bring in a terrific bill for extra gas!--I use it sometimes to cook
my dinner, when I do not feel like going out, and why should we not have
a feast all to ourselves some day? and the sirloin steak shall be
forthcoming! and what do you say to Charlotte Russe? In short, we will
have everything we can think of, and you shall be assistant cook!"
"That would be splendid!" cried Nattie, delighted, "only it will have to
be some Sunday, as that is my only leisure day, you know."
"All the better, for then we will be less liable to intrusion,"
responded Cyn, gayly. "So make a memorandum to that effect, for next
week. We must not let Mrs. Simonson know, however, on account of the gas
stove; I pay her too much rent now. I am afraid we shall have a little
difficulty about dishes. The few I have are not exactly real Sevres
china, or even decently conventional. But--"
"Oh! never mind the dishes!" interrupted Nattie. "Anything will do! I
have myself a cracked tumbler, and a spoon, that will perhaps be useful
for something."
Agreeing therefore to hold dishes in strict contempt, the following
Sunday found the two girls with closed doors, in the midst of great
preparations for a truly Bohemian feast, as Cyn termed it; Nattie with
her crimps tied down in a blue handkerchief, and Cyn with her sleeves
rolled up, and an old skirt of a dress doing duty as apron.
"Let me see," said Nattie merrily, taking account of stock. "Two pounds
of steak--the first cut of the sirloin, I think you said?--waiting,
expectant of making glad our hearts, on the rocking-chair, potatoes in
plebeian lowliness under the table, tomatoes and two pies on your trunk,
Charlotte Russes--delicious Charlotte Russes--where? Ah!--on your
bonnet-box, in a plate ordinarily used as a card receiver, and sugar,
butter, et cetera, and et cetera lying around almost anywhere, and the
figs, oranges and homely, but necessary bread, where are they? I see, on
top of 'Dombey & Son!'"
"And our dishes will not quarrel, because thev are none of them any
relation to each other!" laughed Cyn, as she peeled the tomatoes. "I
fear goblets will have to take upon themselves the duties of cups, and
that cracked tumbler of yours must be used for something. I am sorry
that saucepan is so dilapidated, but it is the best I own!"
"And in that saucepan we must both boil the potatoes and stew the
tomatoes. Won't one cool while the other is doing?" queried Nattie,
hovering lovingly over the steak.
"I think not;" Cyn answered. "You won't mind the coffee being boiled in
a tin can, once the repository of preserved peaches, will you?"
"Ah, no!" replied Nattie emphatically, and sawing at the steak with a
very dull knife, without a handle. "It will be just as good when it's
poured out."
"I had a coffee-pot once, but I melted the nose off and forgot to buy
another yesterday," Cyn said, putting on the potatoes.
"We will call our contrivance a coffee-urn; it sounds aristocratic,"
suggested Nattie, as she cleared the books from the least shaky table,
and spread it with three towels, in lieu of a table-cloth. "But what
shall we do for plates to put the pies on?"
"Take those two wooden box covers in the closet," promptly responded
Cyn. "That is right, and see, here is room also for the coffee--pardon
me, I had almost said commonplace coffee-pot!"
"But the tomato! what _can_ we pour that in?" suddenly exclaimed Nattie,
with great concern.
Cyn scanned every object in the room with dismay.
"The--the wash-bowl!" she insinuated at last, determined not to be
daunted.
"Don't you think it rather large? to say nothing of its being too
suggestive?" said Nattie, laughing.
Cyn did not press the point, but shook her head, dubiously.
"I have it!" cried Nattie, "there is a fruit-dish in my room."
"Just the thing!" interrupted Cyn ecstatically, "I will run and bring
it, if you will attend to the cooking."
"Look out for Miss Kling," said Nattie, warningly; "if she catches a
glimpse of you making off with my fruit-dish, she will never rest until
she finds out everything."
"Rely on me for secrecy and dispatch," said Cyn, going. "If she sees me,
I will mention nuts and raisins; merely mention them, you know."
But Miss Kling, for once, was napping; perhaps dreaming of him Cyn
called the Torpedo--Celeste's father--and she obtained the dish, reached
her own door again without being seen by any one except the Duchess, and
was congratulating herself on her good luck, when suddenly, like an
apparition, Quimby stood before her.
Cyn started, murmured something about "oranges," slipped the soap-dish
she had also confiscated into her pocket, and tried to make the big
fruit-dish appear as small as possible.
She might, however, have spared herself any uneasiness, for this always
the most unobservant of mortals, was too much overburdened with some
affair of his own, to notice even a two-quart dish.
"Oh! I--I beg pardon, I--I was coming with a a--request to your room,"
he said eagerly. "I--would it be too much to--to bring a friend, he
knows no one here, and I am sure he and you would fraternize at once, if
I might bring him, you know."
"Certainly--yes!" replied Cyn, too anxious to get away to pay much
attention to his words, particularly as an odor of steak reached her
nostrils.
"Thank you! I--I never knew any one who understood me as well as you!"
he said with a grateful bow, and without more words, Cyn left him.
"How long you have been gone!" Nattie remarked, looking up, her cheeks
very red, and her nose embellished with a streak of smut, as Cyn
entered. "Did you see any one?"
"No one except Quimby, who stopped me to ask about bringing a friend to
call some evening," Cyn replied, displaying the fruit, and producing the
soap-dish.
"Mercy on us!" Nattie said, looking rather aghast, "it is rather large,
isn't it? and what did you bring-that soap-dish for?"
"I thought it might come handy," laughed Cyn. "We will make a potato
holder of it for the time. 'To what base uses may we come at
last?'--Why--" in a tone of surprise, "here is the Duchess!"
And sure enough, up by the window sat that sagacious animal, winking and
blinking complacently, and evidently determined to be a third in the
feast.
"She came in unnoticed under the shadow that fruit-dish threw," said
Nattie, teasingly.
Cyn shook an oyster fork at her threateningly.
"Say another such word and you shall have no steak!" she said
tragically, "instead, a dungeon shall be your doom. We will let the
Duchess remain as a receiver of odds and ends. I suppose her suspicions
were excited by the sight of these articles. A rare cat! a learned cat!
now please set the table, for our feast will soon be prepared!" and Cyn
bent over the sizzling steak, that emitted a most appetizing odor.
Setting that table was no such easy matter as might appear, for what
with the big fruit-dish, wooden covers, different sizes of plates and
other incongruous articles, considerable management was necessary.
"I shall have to put the sugar on in the bag," Nattie said, incautiously
backing to view the general effect, and so stumbling over the saucepan
of potatoes that sat on the floor, but luckily doing no damage.
"Ah, well! Eccentricity is quite the rage now, you know," responded the
philosophical Cyn, "and certainly, a sugar-bowl so closely resembling a
brown paper bag as not to be distinguishable from the real thing, is
quite _recherche_. But my dear Nat, where am I to set the steak if you
have that big fruit-dish in the center of the table, taking up all the
room?"
"I shall have to put it on the floor, then," Nattie answered,
despairingly, "for I have tried it on all parts of the table! If you set
it on the edge," she added hastily, seeing Cyn about to do so, "you will
tip the whole thing over!"
"Then we must have a side-board," Cyn announced, with a plate of steak
in one hand, and the big fruit-dish in the other. "Put my writing-desk
on a chair, please; spread a towel over it, and there you have it!"
"But what a quantity of eatables we have! Two pounds of steak, ten big
potatoes, a two-quart dish of tomatoes, two large pies, two Charlotte
Russes, an urn of coffee, a dozen oranges and a box of figs--good
gracious! Think of two people eating all that!" exclaimed Nattie,
decidedly dismayed at the prospect.
"It is considerable," Cyn confessed, surveying the array with a slightly
daunted expression. "You see I am not used to buying for a family, and I
was afraid of getting too little. But," brightening, "there isn't more
than one quart of the tomatoes, and there are _three_ of us, you know--the
Duchess!"
"To be sure; I had forgotten her!" Nattie said, recovering her
equanimity, and glancing at the purring animal, who was looking on
approvingly, and evidently appreciated the difference between sirloin
and her usual rations of round.
"Then let the revels commence, at once!" cried Cyn, rolling down her
sleeves, while Nattie wiped the smut from her face.
But now another difficulty presented itself; the chairs were all too low
to admit of feasting with the anticipated rapture; this was soon
overcome, however, by piling a few books in the highest chair, and
appropriating the music-stool.
"Now for a feast," exclaimed Nattie, exultantly, as they sat down
triumphant, and she brandished her very big knife and extremely small
fork, while Cyn poured the coffee from the--urn; an undertaking attended
with some difficulty, and requiring caution; and the Duchess looked on
expectantly.
And then--the goal almost reached--upon their startled ears came a
dreadful sound--the sound of a knock at the door!
Down to the ground went Nattie's knife and fork, the coffee-urn narrowly
escaped a similar fate, up went the back of the Duchess, and two
dismayed Bohemians and one impatient cat gazed at each other.