CHAPTER XIV
“I know what I will do, I will make biscuits for supper—biscuits like Tom makes,” said Bushy one morning as she gazed at a sack of flour that had cost Mr. Sukolt just one dollar a pound.
It was a rare thing to have flour in the camp. Everything had to be brought so far in wagons that by the time freight reached these little out-of-the-way stations, flour cost more than many of the miners could pay. This sack had arrived after all the men had left for the mine.
“I’ll surprise them,” thought Bushy, and she clapped her hands in delight. She ran out to see how the shadows stood, and concluded that there was just time to make an ovenful of biscuits if she hurried. Mr. Sukolt had a watch, but he took that with him, and Bushy could only guess at the time by the shadows. She had taken a stick, driven it into the ground and marked the place where the shadow fell at noon, had made another mark for three o’clock, and a third to indicate the hour to get supper for the men. Generally Tom got the meals, but Bushy felt she was old enough to run the house.
“I’ll take the new tin pan and mix the bread in that,” murmured Bushy as she flew about, happy in planning this great treat for the men. “Now for the sack!” She took a case-knife and sawed away for some time before she could cut the cords and dip down into the beautiful soft white flour.
“Oh, how lovely!” she cried, sinking both hands to the wrists. “I wonder if this is what the ladies that the stories tell about put on their faces? I’ll try it.” Out came her hands and almost a dollar’s worth of the flour clung to her arms and fingers. It took but a minute to spread the powdered stuff all over her face, quite covering her red cheeks and getting it into her hair, so that she looked like a story-book ghost.
“I suppose I ought to put some on my neck, too, or I won’t be all alike. I don’t want to look like crazy Indians, spotted all over. Oh! the dish-pan—the bright, new one!” she cried, and running to the table turned the pan bottom up and gazed down in admiration upon what she saw reflected there.
“I guess I must put more on my neck and arms, and make it like it is on my face.” She worked hard rubbing in the flour, until her spectral appearance would have frightened the wits out of anybody coming suddenly upon her in the dim light. Of course, Bushy could not see how dreadfully white she was by looking at the imperfect reflection of the dish-pan. She gave a sigh of satisfaction, whitened her arms way above the elbows, and then proceeded to make the biscuits.
“Let me see. I put in the flour first, and then the water, and then the salt, and what else?” She could not remember, although she felt there was another something. She stirred the water and added the flour until it grew too stiff, and then with water it suddenly grew too thin, and thus in balancing it up she found her pan was quite full of dough by the time that she could knead it.
“What a pity I made so much! I wonder why the water was always too much for the flour, and when I put in the flour it was always too much for the water. I suppose Tom manages better, for I never saw so much dough in all my life.”
But nothing could discourage Bushy. “I will treat all the men in the camp. Padre won’t mind this once.” Thus thinking, and kneading, and trying first one side of the table and then the other, rolling first one-half of the dough and folding it into the other, then mixing it all in and sprinkling it with dry flour to keep it from sticking to her fingers, she got it so she could cut out beautiful hunks with the tin cup that had no handle. It was lots of fun to put the cup over the dough and then bear down with all her might and feel it cut through with a fluff and a puff, ofttimes sending the dry flour into her eyes and nose.
SHE GAZED DOWN IN ADMIRATION UPON WHAT SHE SAW REFLECTED THERE.
“My, what a lot of biscuits!” she cried, as dozens were placed side by side in a row about the table. Bushy was all excitement. Her hands grew very tired making each biscuit as round as she could, a great deal as she would roll a snowball. When her arms grew weary she rolled the balls on the rough table, not noticing that now and then the soft dough picked up a pine splinter.
What Bushy called the oven was an iron arrangement something like a skillet, but larger and with a heavy iron cover. This she placed over a great mass of red coals, and when it got hot took off the cover and put in the first twelve biscuits.
“I must have these extra fine,” she said, “so I’ll cover the lid with coals as Tom does and have the biscuits lovely and brown.”
Her delight was quite hilarious when she took off the lid later and saw a dozen of the most beautiful looking biscuits that ever greeted her eyes. For fear of injuring them she lifted out each one with the dish towel and placed it in a deep pan to keep warm till the men should come. Her joy found vent in an occasional war-whoop or a handspring that threatened the overturning of the pan of biscuits every time; but how could she keep still when her heart was so full of the good time she had arranged for the men?
The second pan of biscuits had been placed on the table, the coffee had been made, some slices of deer meat had been broiled as daintily as the best of cooks could have done it, and supper was quite ready when Mr. Sukolt and Tom and Shanks turned the corner and entered on the scene.
“Whew! how good this smells!” cried all three together. Mr. Sukolt dumped into one corner of the tent a lot of specimens of gold-bearing quartz. Tom threw down his tools and went out to wash his face, and Shanks, seeing supper was quite ready, said he saw nothing for him to do, so he would take off his heavy miner’s boots and put on moccasins to be comfortable while he ate.
“But where is Bushy?” said Mr. Sukolt, looking all about the tent. “What is the matter with you, Bushy? Are you back there?” he asked, shaking the blanket that made a partition between the dining-room and Bushy’s sleeping apartment.
“Nothing is the matter with me, Padre; but when I come out I want you to treat me as I should be treated.”
Mr. Sukolt did not catch what she said, for his anxiety was gone when he heard her voice, and after washing his face and hands he joined the other two men at the table and began to eat.
“Ahem! ahem!” was the slight noise that made all three turn their faces toward the blanket, and astonished men they were! With stately step Bushy sallied forth from her dressing-room. It was the white face that so startled the men. The dress, of course was queer, but those pallid features made her eyes seem far back in her head, and as black as dead coals, and her hair, standing straight on end, was filled with flour and dough. Her dress represented, as near as Bushy could make it, the dress in the picture in the weekly paper that the miner had given her. The red flannel trailed behind her in five strips, which were run through her belt and left to flow in graceful folds. Her buckskin jacket had been discarded, and an old one that Tom had declared only good enough for Indians she had cut down to represent the low silk bodice of the woman in the picture. A red blanket was pinned about her for the dress skirt, and a pistol belt, to which she had suspended a cow-boy’s whip and a small chain to which she had attached an Indian beaded bag and an arrow or two, represented the Egyptian girdle worn by the same lady. Two strands of Indian beads passed as bracelets about her floury arms.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Tom, “are you the daughter of the man in the moon? You don’t seem to like our country—you look scared.”
Bushy had forgotten all about her white face, and, not knowing just how funny she looked, was inclined to be offended, when Tom burst out in roars of laughter.
“My days in heaven, Bushy!” cried Shanks stepping forward, “why, you”——
“I pray you to be seated, gentlemen. It behooves me to proclaim that you are most welcome,” said Bushy, giving what she thought was a queenly bow, and motioning for them to proceed with their dinner. Then, in her natural voice, she added: “I don’t see why you sat down and spoiled the whole thing before I could get in.”
“Boys, you are both as stupid as Rover,” cried Mr. Sukolt, rising and with great courtesy escorting the little lady to her place at the table. “We have here the Queen of the Mountains, and we are her guests. If you don’t know your place, boys, you will have to get out, that’s all!”
“And then you would miss the biscuits, which would serve you right,” remarked Bushy, taking her seat with great difficulty.
“What! biscuits? Ah, now we understand.” A smile flitted over all the faces, and the paleness of Bushy was explained. “The flour has come and we are to be entertained by the Queen of the Mountains in regal fashion! Ha, ha, I’ll take some, if you please,” said Tom, rubbing his hands in glee. “Biscuits, just think of it! biscuits for supper!”
“I think you should say dinner, Tom,” said Bushy in her fine-lady voice. “You—ah—you—ah, have never been in the queen’s palace before, have you, Tom. Poor fellow, you don’t know what good things are!”
Tom took a biscuit. So did Shanks, and then Mr. Sukolt reached his hand out for one. Bushy’s face beamed as well as it could through the thick layer of flour. “I knew you boys would like a treat,” said she, “and I have blistered my hands rolling the bread. It is awfully hard to do it, isn’t it, Tom?”
Tom’s face wore an odd expression which no one could then understand, yet he answered: “Yes, it isn’t everybody who can make bread. Biscuits especially are a scientific production. Bushy is to be congratulated.”
Bushy was so excited over the rôle she was playing that she did not touch the biscuits herself, but in a very lady-like manner waited on table, poured the coffee, and used all the big words she could remember that were in the unfinished story in the weekly story paper.
“I trust your family is well, Mr. Shanks. Will you have roast chicken, lamb, or deer meat?”
“Deer meat, if you please,” said Shanks, timidly. “I always was rather partial to game.” He emphasized the word game and winked at Tom.
“What do you mean by that?” cried Bushy, her dignity all gone in a minute when she saw some fun afloat. She leaned back and glanced first at her father, who had eaten heartily of everything except the biscuits. Tom had three in a row in front of his plate and not one touched. Shanks reached over and was trying to load his revolver with one.
“I must say that this infinitely charms me. What concealest thou from me, Padre? Thine eyes are as merry as those of my subjects. What is passing in the thoughts of This and This?” she pointed disdainfully first at Tom and then at Shanks.
“Something is amiss, I fear, with the biscuits. Just order the servant to put aside two for me to assay to-morrow,” answered Mr. Sukolt, mischievously, in the high-toned voice of the hostess.
“Ah, they were the apple of mine eye—they dazzled my senses with their brown beauty as—as”——
“Don’t get stuck on a word now, Bushy, when you have done so well so far,” cried Tom as he lifted a hammer and brought it down with the full strength of his mighty arm upon a brown biscuit that he had placed on the stone at the cabin door.
“Tom, Tom,” she cried, “tell me something”——
“I’ll tell you, Bushy, that they are excellent coffee biscuits, and I couldn’t have made better. See, I have filled my cup with two and the third will follow.” And Tom, in the goodness of his heart, ate the three biscuits without flinching.
“You dear old man!” cried Bushy, rushing about the table in anything but a queenly fashion, and fairly covering him with flour from her face and arms, “you deserve to be knighted for this. I’ll proclaim you Sir Tom for ever and ever. Amen!”
Late in the night, after everybody had been in bed and asleep several hours, Mr. Sukolt was startled by a soft hand on his face, and hearing the words, “Say, Padre, I’ve been wondering and wondering what I left out, and it has just come to me.” She leaned over, and when her mouth touched his ear she whispered low, so Tom could not hear, “It was baking powder; and I just want you to tell Tom and Shanks to-morrow that I am not so stupid as I seem.”
On the promise that her father would take her part next morning Bushy went to her hammock again and slept soundly the rest of the night. Her little heart would have been much more troubled, however, had she realized that her first biscuit-making had cost her father something like $10 for flour.