"LET me try," said Amadis, taking the handle of the churn from Jearje.
The butter was obstinate, and would not come; it was eleven o'clock in
the morning, and still there was the rattle of milk in the barrel, the
sound of a liquid splashing over and over. By the sounds Mrs. Iden knew
that the fairies were in the churn. Jearje had been turning for hours.
Amadis stooped to the iron handle, polished like silver by Jearje's
rough hands--a sort of skin sand-paper--and with an effort made the
heavy blue-painted barrel revolve on its axis.
Mrs. Iden, her sleeves up, looked from the dairy window into the court
where the churn stood.
"Ah, it's no use your trying," she said, "you'll only tire yourself."
Jearje, glad to stand upright a minute, said, "First-rate, measter."
Amaryllis cried, "Take care; you'd better not, you'll hurt yourself."
"Aw!--aw!" laughed Bill Nye, who was sitting on a form by the wall
under the dairy window. He was waiting to see Iden about the mowing.
"Aw!--aw! Look 'ee thur, now!"
Heavily the blue barrel went round--thrice, four times, five times; the
colour mounted into Amadis's cheeks, not so much from the labour as the
unwonted stooping; his breath came harder; he had to desist, and go and
sit down on the form beside Bill Nye.
"I wish you would not do it," said Amaryllis. "You know you're not
strong yet." She spoke as if she had been his mother or his nurse,
somewhat masterfully and reproachfully.
"I'm afraid I'm not," said poor Amadis. His chin fell and his face
lengthened--his eyes grew larger--his temples pinched; disappointment
wrung at his heart.
Convalescence is like walking in sacks; a short waddle and a fall.
"I can tell 'ee of a vine thing, measter," said Bill Nye, "as I knows
on; you get a pint measure full of snails----"
"There, do hold your tongue, it's enough to make anyone ill to think
of," said Amaryllis, angrily, and Bill was silent as to the cod-liver
oil virtues of snails. Amaryllis went to fetch a glass of milk for
Amadis.
A robin came into the court, and perching on the edge of a tub,
fluttered his wings, cried "Check, check," "Anything for me this
morning?" and so put his head on one side, languishing and persuasive.
"My sister, as was in a decline, used to have snail-oil rubbed into her
back," said Luce, the maid, who had been standing in the doorway with a
duster.
"A pretty state of things," cried Mrs. Hen, in a passion. "You standing
there doing nothing, and it's butter-making morning, and everything
behind, and you idling and talking,"--rushing out from the dairy, and
following Luce, who retreated indoors.
"Hur'll catch it," said Bill Nye.
"Missis is ----" said Jearje, supplying the blank with a wink, and
meaning in a temper this morning. "Missis," like all nervous people, was
always in a fury about nothing when her mind was intent on an object; in
this case, the butter.
"Here's eleven o'clock," she cried, in the sitting-room, pointing to the
clock, "and the beds ain't made."
"I've made the beds," said stolid Luce.
"And the fire isn't dusted up."
"I've dusted up the fire."
"And you're a lazy slut"--pushing Luce about the room.
"I bean't a lazy slut."
"You haven't touched the mantelpiece; give me the duster!"--snatching it
from her.
"He be done."
"All you can do is to stand and talk with the men. There's no water
taken up stairs."
"That there be."
"You know you ought to be doing something; the lazy lot of people in
this house; I never saw anything like it; there's Mr. Iden's other boots
to be cleaned, and there's the parlour to be swept, and the path to be
weeded, and the things to be taken over for washing, and the teapot
ought to go in to Woolhorton, you know the lid's loose, and the children
will be here in a minute for the scraps, and your master will be in to
lunch, and there's not a soul to help me in the least," and so, flinging
the duster at Luce, out she flew into the court, and thence into the
kitchen, where she cut a great slice of bread and cheese, and drew a
quart of ale, and took them out to Bill Nye.
"Aw, thank'ee m'm," said Bill, from the very depth of his chest, and set
to work happily.
Next, she drew a mug for Jearje, who held it with one hand and sipped,
while he turned with the other; his bread and cheese he ate in like
manner, he could not wait till he had finished the churning.
"Verily, man is made up of impatience," said the angel Gabriel in the
Koran, as you no doubt remember; Adam was made of clay (who was the
sculptor's ghost that modelled him?) and when the breath of life was
breathed into him, he rose on his arm and began to eat before his lower
limbs were yet vivified. This is a fact. "Verily, man is made up of
impatience." As the angel had never had a stomach or anything to sit
upon, as the French say, he need not have made so unkind a remark; if he
had had a stomach and a digestion like Bill Nye and Jearje, it is
certain he would never have wanted to be an angel.
Next, there were four cottage children now in the court, waiting for
scraps.
Mrs. Iden, bustling to and fro like a whirlwind, swept the poor little
things into the kitchen and filled two baskets for them with slices of
bread and butter, squares of cheese, a beef bone, half a rabbit, a dish
of cold potatoes, two bottles of beer from the barrel, odds and ends,
and so swept them off again in a jiffy.
Mrs. Iden! Mrs. Iden! you ought to be ashamed of yourself, that is not
the way to feed the poor. What _could_ you be thinking of, you ignorant
farmer's wife!
You should go to London, Mrs. Iden, and join a Committee with duchesses
and earlesses, and wives of rich City tradesfolk; much more important
these than the duchesses, they will teach you manners. They will teach
you how to feed the poor with the help of the Rev. Joseph Speechify, and
the scientific Dr. Amoeba Bacillus; Joe has Providence at his fingers'
ends, and guides it in the right way; Bacillus knows everything to a
particle; with Providence and Science together they _must_ do it
properly.
The scientific dinner for the poor must be composed of the principles of
food in the right proportion: (1) Albuminates, (2) Hydro-Carbons, (3)
Carbo-hydrates. Something juicy coming now!
The scientific dinner consists of haricot beans, or lentil soup, or
oatmeal porridge, or vegetable pot-bouilli; say twopence a quart. They
can get all the proteids out of that, and lift the requisite foot-tons.
No wasteful bread and butter, no scandalous cheese, no abominable beef
bone, no wretched rabbit, no prodigal potatoes, above all, No immoral
ale!
There, Mrs. Iden.
Go to the famous Henry Ward Beecher, that shining light and apostle,
Mrs. Iden, and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what he says:--
"A man who cannot live on bread is not fit to live. A family may live,
laugh, love and be happy that eats bread in the morning with good water,
and water and good bread at noon, and water and bread at night."
Does that sound like an echo of the voice that ceased on the Cross?
Guilty Mrs Iden, ignorant farmer's wife; hide your beef and ale, your
rabbit and potatoes.
To duchesses and earlesses, and plump City ladies riding in carriages,
and all such who eat and drink five times a day, and have six or eight
courses at dinner, doubtless once now and then a meal of vegetable
pot-bouilli, or oatmeal porridge, or lentil soup (three halfpence a
pound lentils), or haricot beans and water would prove a scientifically
wholesome thing.
But to those who exist all the week on hunches of dry bread, and not
much of that, oatmeal porridge doesn't seem to come as a luxury. They
would like something juicy; good rumpsteak now, with plenty of rich
gravy, broad slices from legs of mutton, and foaming mugs of ale. They
need something to put fresh blood and warmth into them.
You sometimes hear people remark: "How strange it is--the poor never buy
oatmeal, or lentils!"
Of course they don't; if by any chance they do get a shilling to spend,
they like a mutton chop. They have enough of farinaceous fare.
What Mrs. Iden ought to have done had she been scientific, was to have
given each of these poor hungry children a nicely printed little
pamphlet, teaching them how to cook.
Instead of which, she set all their teeth going; infinitely wicked Mrs.
Iden!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]