KEEPING HOUSE.
Poor little Mosina had crawled around her chair till her length of
string had given out, and then, endeavouring to crawl between the
chair-legs, had fallen forward on her face, and lay sprawled out like a
little turtle. The girls flew for her, and rescued her by drawing her
out by the heels. She refused to be comforted, however, and continued to
roar.
“I suppose she’s hungry,” said Cricket, at last, in a tone of despair.
“Hilda, please look in the closet and see what there is for her
luncheon. Mosina, _do_ hush, baby! What, Hilda?”
“I said that there isn’t a thing in the closet but two plates and a
stone mug, and such things,—not a single thing to eat.”
“Look in that little cupboard by the chimney, then. Shouldn’t you think
she must have _something_ to eat around? What _shall_ we do if there
isn’t anything to eat anywhere?” in deeper despair.
“There _is_ something here,” announced Hilda, joyfully, having climbed
upon a chair to look in the little chimney-closet. After a moment she
got down, soberly, and proclaimed the contents of the larder to be two
dried herrings, a half loaf of stale bread, some doubtful-looking
butter, and a piece of very dry cheese.
The children looked at each other in dismay. Luncheon to them seemed a
very serious and pressing matter, especially as Mosina was still
roaring, and they knew she was hungry.
“What shall we do?” said Cricket, mournfully; “I feel as hungry as a
bear, myself. Oh, Hilda, those cookies!”
Hilda flew across the room for them, with her cap flopping.
Cricket popped a big piece of a cookie into Mosina’s open mouth, and put
another in her hand.
“Sit down on the floor now, and be a good baby,” she said, putting her
charge down. “It’s dry enough. Now, Hilda, what will _we_ eat? I want
something more than cookies.”
“I can’t eat dried herring,” said Hilda, decidedly, her fastidious nose
going up in disgust.
“We might toast the bread, I suppose,” said Cricket. “_Do_ you think
they don’t ever have anything but dried herring? I’ve always wondered
why mamma is always sending things to eat to poor people, and now I
know.”
“Can’t they cook, do you suppose, or do they spend all their time
washing?” wondered Hilda. “Don’t you think they ever have anything to
eat except what people send them?” in an awe-struck tone.
“I don’t believe they do. Can you cut bread, Hilda?”
“Of _course_. Anybody can cut bread, I should think; where’s the knife?”
“I can’t find any regular bread-knife,” said Cricket, rummaging in the
cupboard. “Here’s one, take this; it’s awfully dull, though. While
you’re cutting it, I’ll look for a gridiron to toast the bread on.”
Hilda took the loaf and the knife confidently, but soon discovered that
cutting bread is a fine art, and not by any means so easy as it looks.
“What _is_ the matter?” she said in despair, at last. “Well, nobody
could cut bread with this old knife, that’s as dull as a hoe,” she
added, surveying the jagged, uneven wedges, which were all she could
manage. “Have you found the gridiron?”
“No. She doesn’t seem to have _anything_ except a teakettle and a
saucepan. And here’s a flat thing like what cook fries potatoes in, and
here’s a tin pan, and that’s every single thing I can find. What do you
suppose she cooks with?” asked Cricket, with increasing surprise, and
with a vision before her eyes of the quantities of shining utensils that
lined the kitchen closets at home.
“Toast the bread on a fork, then,” said Hilda; “and can’t we cook the
herring in some way? I’m getting hungry enough to eat nails now.”
“I suppose we might fry them. Then we could toast the cheese. I know how
to do that.”
“All right! we’ll fry the herring in the spider,” said Hilda,
brightening; “I believe it will be real good. But what will Mosina eat?
Ought she to have herring and toasted cheese?”
“Oh, here’s some milk out on the window ledge!” cried Cricket, joyfully.
“We can crumble some of this dry bread in it, and feed Mosina with it.
That will be fine for her. Bless the child! she’s as good as a lamb
now.”
“Isn’t she! I’ll toast the bread, and you can set the table, Cricket.”
Cricket assented; but after rummaging a while, asked Hilda where she
supposed Mrs. Brummagen kept her table-cloths and napkins.
“In that cupboard drawer, probably,” said Hilda, trying to make the
uneven chunks of bread balance on the two-tined steel fork which she had
found.
“I don’t suppose we ought to look in her drawers, even if we _do_ want a
table-cloth. Well, I’ll just peek in. No; there’s nothing there but a
dress of Mosina’s,” after a hasty “peek.”
“I can’t eat off that faded pink thing on the table,” said Hilda, with
decision. “At least, I don’t believe I can,” she added, more doubtfully,
as the empty place in her stomach began to protest against waiting much
longer for something to put in it. “Ow! there goes the bread into the
fire again!”
She prodded the scorched wedge of bread with the fork, and brought it up
successfully. She was growing quite expert in rescuing the pieces and
blowing off the ashes.
“Cricket, this bread is simply roasted, instead of toasted.”
“It does smell pretty scorchy,” said Cricket, looking at it anxiously.
“We can’t waste it, though, for there isn’t much of it. Hilda, I can’t
find a single thing to put on for a table-cloth, excepting a sheet.
Wouldn’t you rather have the pink cloth? It looks clean, anyway.
Probably her white cloths are all in the wash.”
“I’d eat it on the floor now,” said Hilda, with a decided change of
base. “The bread’s done. Now for the herring.”
Cricket proceeded to set the table, by putting the knives and forks and
the two plates on.
“There’s the table set. Looks sort of bare, though. What will you do
with the herrings? Put them in the spider and let them frizzle?”
“I _think_ so,” said Hilda, doubtfully. “I never saw any cooked, but how
else could we eat them? This fire doesn’t seem very hot, Cricket. Can’t
we do something to it?”
Considering that the stove lids had been off for fifteen minutes during
the bread-toasting, it was not surprising that the top of the fire was a
mass of gray ashes.
“Put on coal,” said Cricket, with the air of the lady from Philadelphia.
“But do let’s cook the herring first. I’m hungry enough to eat Mosina.
Oh, you fatty! aren’t you happy with your cookies!”
“Oh, Cricket, here are some cold boiled potatoes,” cried Hilda, as
joyfully as if she had discovered a gold mine. “They were back in this
corner. Can’t we fry them?”
“We can,” returned Cricket, promptly. “I’ll fry them in the saucepan
while you do the herring. I’ll cut them up.”
Ten minutes later, the two little cooks stood looking at each other in
despair. The thin iron of the spider and saucepan heated immediately,
even over the dying fire, and the potatoes and herring being put in
without any lard, or fat of any kind, naturally stuck fast to the bottom
of the pan, and scorched. Most unpleasant odours filled the air.
“Did you ever imagine it was so hard to cook?” sighed Cricket. “That
toast was stone-cold long ago. Look at these messy things!”
“The worst of it is that we can’t eat the burned parts,” said Hilda,
hungrily, “and there’ll be so little left.”
“Hilda, let’s eat what we can of it right _now_,” proposed Cricket. “If
we cook any more we’ll _never_ get anything to eat.”
“I could eat fried boards,” said Hilda. “Yes, let’s scrape out what of
the potatoes isn’t burned tight down, and eat it up _fast_;” and Hilda
picked up the saucepan.
“Oh, Hilda, I forgot about Mosina! Aren’t you the _bestest_ baby! She
ought to have her milk, Hilda, and I’ll give her some while you’re
fixing luncheon on the table.”
Cricket poured some of the ice-cold milk out into a bowl, and crumbled
some dry bread in it.
Mosina received each mouthful with a series of solemn smacks.
“I’m ready when you are, Cricket,” announced Hilda at length, surveying
the somewhat scanty board with a hungry eye.
“There goes the last mouthful, Mosina,” said Cricket, stuffing the spoon
so hastily into Mosina’s open mouth that the baby choked.
“There! never mind, baby! it didn’t hurt. Now I’m ready, Hilda. Oh, just
think! we’ve been so busy with washing and cooking that we’ve forgotten
to play for ever so long.”
[Illustration: KEEPING HOUSE.]
“Yes, but don’t let’s play now, for goodness sake! I’m too starving
hungry! Sit down and begin.”
Cricket and Hilda drew up their chairs to the delicious banquet. On one
plate lay a curious-looking heap of what Hilda called toast. It
consisted of wedges of bread an inch and a half thick on one side, and
nothing at all on the other, burnt crisp on the thin edges, and scorched
on the thick ones, with the dust of the ashes which it had collected in
its numerous descents into the fire still sticking to it. It was
perfectly cold, so that the small lumps of white butter stuck to it
unmelted. Two herrings, burnt perfectly black on one side, and, of
course, as hard as a piece of coal, reposed side by side on a saucer.
Potatoes cut in little chunks, each very black as to one side and very
white as to the other, were heaped up on another saucer. These dainties
comprised all the meal.
Cricket and Hilda looked at each other a moment in silence, then Cricket
said briskly:
“Isn’t this fun? Let’s play this is roast turkey. Shall I carve? or
perhaps I’d better give you a whole turkey, seeing we are wealthy enough
to have two,” transferring one of the herrings to Hilda’s plate. “Will
you have some scalloped oysters?” passing the potatoes. “They’re done by
a new recipe,” she added, laughing, and attacking her herring with knife
and fork. Hilda followed her example. Of course they might as well have
tried to cut their stone plates.
“I’m desperate! please excuse me,” cried Cricket, lifting her herring,
head and tail, with her fingers, and attacking it this time with her
teeth. She desisted after a vain effort.
“It’s no use,” she sighed. “I got off a few splinters, but they are not
so _very_ good. They do taste burned, and if there’s one thing I hate,
it’s _burn_. Well, let’s have some toast.”
“That’s burned a little, too,” said Hilda, apologetically. “Perhaps we
can scrape it off where it’s thicker and eat the inside. Cricket,
these—these oysters seem to need something. They don’t taste like fried
potatoes a bit.”
“Of _course_ they don’t, for they’re oysters. How could oysters taste
fried potatoes? But they do taste queer, even for oysters,” said
Cricket. “The toast is a little burned, isn’t it?” nibbling first around
one scorched place and then around another. Finally she laid the piece
down in despair.
“Hilda, the more I eat, the hungrier I get! I think I’ll try some plain
bread.”
“There isn’t any more. I toasted all I cut, and the rest you gave to
Mosina.”
The two girls sat hungrily surveying the remains of their luncheon. The
herring had been abandoned as hopeless. The white top of each little
chunk of potato was eaten, though every one knows that scorched potato,
without either salt or butter, is not exactly appetising. The inside of
the thick ends of the bread had been devoured also, but their fragments
were not very satisfying to hearty little appetites.
“There are the cookies,” said Hilda, suddenly.
Cricket sprang for them eagerly, at the suggestion.
“It seems sort of mean to eat the very things we brought,” she said,
hesitating a moment. “Oh, well, mamma will send some more things down
to-morrow, when I tell her how we eat up everything Mrs. Brummagen had
in the house. _Don’t_ these taste good? I feel as if I were at home
again now,” attacking a thin, crisp ginger-snap, and making way with it
almost in one mouthful. In a minute there was nothing left but the
crumbs of the whole supply. Mosina sat staring wistfully at them.
“The poor dear!” said Hilda. “We’ve eaten up every single thing now, and
she looks hungry still.”
“There’s a little more milk,” said Cricket, getting it. “Drink this,
baby. Hilda, do you suppose the burned bread would hurt her if we
crumbled it into the milk for her? Perhaps she won’t taste it.”
Apparently Mosina did not mind it, for she eat it eagerly.
“What let’s do now?” asked Hilda. “When will Mrs. Brummagen be home, do
you think?”
“I don’t know. Let’s clear the table and iron these sheets. You know we
were going to get them all done.”
Flat-irons had been standing on the stove all the morning, though the
girls had pushed them back in their attempts at cooking. Hilda looked
resigned at Cricket’s proposal, but said nothing. The two cleared the
table of the remains of their banquet, and piled up the scanty array of
dishes.
The sheets were still lying in damp, flattened coils in the basket,
where they had put them. Cricket found the ironing-board and put it
between the table and a chair, as she had seen the laundress do at home.
They unfolded a sheet and spread it out carefully, wrinkled and wet,
over the board, not noticing that half of it lay on the floor behind.
Cricket, with a professional air, tested one of the irons, again
imitating the laundress.
“Pretty hot,” she said. It was really barely warm, for the fire was fast
dying, but to her unaccustomed finger it felt hot.
“Now, I’m really Mrs. O’Flanagan. We mustn’t forget to play. You take
care of the baby, mother, and I’ll iron. And—Hilda!” with a sudden
change of tone, “Look here!” for the half-warm flat-iron on the damp
sheet had left a long, black smooch. “What in the world is the matter?
It keeps doing it;” for Cricket tried different places, with the result
of producing a smallpox of black spots. “Did you ever?”
“Perhaps the iron is too hot, and scorches it,” suggested Hilda,
surveying the places critically.
“I never want to hear the word ‘scorched’ again,” said Cricket, setting
down her iron with a thump. “If it’s being scorched, I shan’t iron any
more. That’s one thing sure;” and Cricket hastily bundled the sheet back
into the basket. Between lying on the floor and the smooches from the
iron, the colour of the sheet was fast becoming African.
“It’s the queerest thing! I thought that ironing was as easy as falling
off a log,” using her favourite comparison, which long experience had
shown her was very easy indeed.
“When Sarah irons, she leaves smooth streaks everywhere the iron
touches. I thought _any_body could iron.”
“_I_ thought anybody could fry potatoes. Cricket, what time do you
suppose it is? I think it must be nearly dinner-time. Don’t you feel as
if you’d been here a week?”
“Yes, a month. Don’t eat that string, Mosina. You’re as bad as
Johnnie-goat.”
“And, Cricket, just _suppose_ she shouldn’t get home before dark!”
“Oh, papa would send for us,” said Cricket, securely. “He knows we’re
here. But I _do_ wish Mrs. Brummagen would come home. I’m getting
dreadfully tired of playing I’m poor. What do you want, Mosina?” picking
up the plump baby that crawled up to her, pulling at her dress. She sat
down on the floor, taking her little charge in her arms.
“What you get fat on, Mosina, _I_ don’t know, unless it’s fattening not
to eat much. Mosina, I used to think it would be fun to live in one
room, and get your own meals, and play housekeeping, but I’ve changed my
mind. When you have to live on burnt herring—”
“And stale bread,” burst in Hilda.
“And burned potatoes—”
“And iron with irons that won’t iron—”
“And have messy washing around all the time—”
“And nothing to sew with—”
“And nothing to cook with, and nothing to cook in it—”
“And only wooden chairs to sit down on—”
“And nothing to read—”
“Oh, goodness, gracious me! I do believe I won’t ever scold again at
home, and say I hate things,” said Hilda, drawing a long breath. “I
never thought before how perfectly horrid it would be _never_ to have
anything nice. I wonder if poor people mind it.”
“Oh, dear, I hope not!” said Cricket, looking troubled. “When I’m rich,
Hilda,”—with the confidence of childhood that such a time is surely
coming,—“I’ll give everything I have to poor people, so they won’t have
to work so hard, and can get books to read.”
“But you couldn’t do that,” objected Hilda, practically, “for you would
not have anything left for yourself, and _you’d_ be poor. And if nobody
was poor, who’d do our cooking, and all those things?”
This problem was too deep for Cricket’s troubled little brain.
“It’s a puzzle,” she sighed; then she added, brightening, “I’ll ask
papa; _he’ll_ fix it, when he’s rich. But—I don’t see _why_—” she
pondered, struck by another thought, “why _I_ should have a nice home
and such a dear family, and books, and everything I want, and Mosina
have only this little room and not much to eat. Suppose _I’d_ happened
to be Mosina, and Mosina had been _me_! Oh, dear! it gets worse and
worse!”
And Cricket, with a sigh of puzzlement over this problem of all ages,
dropped a kiss on Mosina’s placid cheek.
But Mosina, herself, suddenly put an end to the consideration of all
hard questions, by setting up one of her unexpected roars, as she
doubled herself up like a little jack-knife. Poor little thing! the
ice-cold milk had naturally given her a severe attack of colic.
“What is the matter, baby?” cried Cricket, in dismay, cuddling Mosina in
her arms, in her motherly little fashion. Mosina roared on, alternately
doubling herself up and straightening herself out. Cricket and Hilda
began to get thoroughly frightened.
“Cricket, she isn’t dying, is she?” whispered Hilda, trembling. Not
having any brothers or sisters, she was perfectly helpless with
children.
“I don’t know, but I guess not,” said Cricket, feeling rather disturbed,
herself. “There, baby! hush, dear! What shall I do for you? Mercy,
Hilda, she’s getting black in the face! Do go for somebody.”
“Where shall I go?” asked Hilda helplessly, wringing her hands.
“Anywhere—down-stairs—in the next room. Find somebody quickly.”
Hilda flew for the door, and ran plump into Mrs. Brummagen, who rushed
in breathlessly. In a twinkling, the baby was in her arms. Mosina was
holding her breath, and was purple in the face. Her mother promptly blew
down her throat, and thumped her on the back, and in a moment the roar
began again, but rather less vehemently. The colic was evidently passing
over.
Poor little Mrs. Brummagen was in a state of excitement and apology
bordering on distraction, at the idea of the young ladies staying there
all day long, and taking care of Mosina all that time.
“An’ you eat—vat?” she demanded, tragically. “Der vas noding to eat. An’
you been here—four—five—six—hour!”
“We couldn’t find much to eat,” admitted Cricket, honestly. “We tried to
cook the herrings, but they were rather tough, and we fried potatoes,
only they wouldn’t fry. They seemed to burn, somehow.”
Mrs. Brummagen poured out a string of mingled German and English
ejaculations, expressive of her distress.
“And, Mrs. Brummagen, we thought we’d help you a little and get your
sheets all washed and ironed, but somehow it didn’t go right, and we
made a dreadful mess of it. I guess you have to know how, if you wash
and iron. It looks so easy, I thought any one could do it. The sheet is
dreadfully dirty—the one we did, I mean,—and it’s all smoochy, too. Will
it come out?” and Cricket shook out the damp sheet from the basket, and
anxiously displayed it.
Mrs. Brummagen was more overcome than before.
“Ach, the dear chilt!” she cried. “Ya, it vill come out, ven I vash him
mit soap.”
“I’m so glad,” said Cricket, greatly relieved. “Of course, mamma would
have given you another one, though. Now, we must go, I think. Oh, Hilda!
we forgot your cap! Mrs. Brummagen, we dressed up to play keeping house,
but we were so busy _doing_ it, that we forgot to play much.”
Mrs. Brummagen helped them on with their things, talking all the time,
in her broken English, and telling them how she ought not have gone at
all, and how she hardly knew what she was doing, and how she couldn’t
get away sooner, and how she had worried all day about their getting
something to eat.
“Never mind,” said Cricket. “We enjoyed it ever so much. Good-bye,
Mosina. Bring her up on Saturday, when you come for the bundle, won’t
you? Good-bye.”
It was getting well into the dusk of the short winter day, when the
children arrived at home. Cricket flew into her mother’s arms and kissed
her as if she had been gone six weeks.
“My little girl, where _have_ you been, and what have you been doing? I
was just sending Eliza down for you. Somebody left word at the basement
door that you were going to stay at Mrs. Brummagen’s all day, but I
expected you home long ago.”
“Mamma, we’ve been playing poor, and I don’t—like—it—one—bit,” said
Cricket, slowly, with her head on her mother’s neck. “I always thought
it would be rather fun to be poor, but it isn’t. It’s just perfectly
horrid. And I’m so hungry, you can’t think! And oh, mamma dearest!
suppose—just _suppose_—that I’d been Mrs. Brummagen’s little girl,
instead of yours!”