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A MOLASSES CAKE STORY
Every one in our town says that Mrs. Simonsen’s molasses cakes are the best in the world,—they are so thick and soft and extraordinarily tasty. Mrs. Simonsen doesn’t make them herself,—Heinrich Schulze, the head baker, does that. How in the world could she ever have learned to make such good cakes? But she stands behind the counter in her shop and sells them every single day.
Mrs. Simonsen came from Telemarken. When I was a little bit of a girl she was the servant in Madam Land’s house, at the foot of our hill. At that time she was Sigrid—something or other—some queer surname that I’ve forgotten. She had azure-blue eyes and golden hair that lay in small curly waves just as if she didn’t do a thing all day in Madam Land’s kitchen but crimp her hair! Sigrid married the baker Simonsen, and he died; and ever since then Heinrich Schulze has been the head baker.
Although I had known Madam Simonsen such a long time there was no use in going into her shop without money, you may be sure; but whenever I have money, I go there and buy molasses cakes. If I have no money I go in the back way through the gate and beg from Heinrich Schulze. As a matter of fact, I go oftenest the back way.
I can always find him in the yard there. He is usually hurrying to and fro between the shop and the bakery, and often the molasses cake dough hangs over his shoulder like a long sausage. Schulze says that good molasses cake dough should be so tough that it will hang over one’s shoulder without breaking. Some people think it is disgusting for him to carry the dough that way, but I don’t. I even eat it raw, right from his shoulder, very often.
For Schulze and I are great friends, let me tell you. He is German, rather old and small, has black eyes and is very wide-awake, and quick in his motions.
One day I got him to give me his photograph. On the back of the picture is written, “Heinrich Schulze, geboren in Halle.” So I know exactly how his name is spelled. I am delighted to have his photograph, for it is so amusing and so “grown-up” to have a good many pictures in your album. Heinrich Schulze’s is the nicest one I have. He looks so free and easy, standing with his legs crossed, beside a curtain. I have an old picture of Father, and one of Grandfather, but that has his legs torn off. Then I have a picture of Mrs. Huus’s little dog; I begged that from the photographer because it was so sweet. And finally I have Marie Lokke’s lover. She wouldn’t keep his picture any longer, because he had become engaged to another girl without her knowing anything about it; so she gave his photograph to me. These are all the pictures I have,—few enough, it seems to me,—and Schulze’s is the very nicest. So you see that is why I am so friendly with him. If we had not been such good friends, there would not have been any molasses cake story.
I know just exactly the days when he bakes molasses cakes; and on those days I hang around the door and tease and tease.
“Give me a little dough, Schulze, just a little piece, Schulze.” And he almost always gives me some.
One Thursday afternoon, (my, how vividly I remember it!) Schulze, with the dough over his shoulder, came swinging out into the back yard where I sat on a barrel waiting. It happened that I had in my hand a tiny china doll, one of those little “bath dolls” without any clothes on.
Schulze was in grand good humor that day.
“It may happen that I shall be the master of this bakery here in the town. Then Heinrich Schulze will be on top and can snap his fingers at the whole world,” said Schulze, with the dough over his shoulder and snapping his fingers in the air as he spoke. I think that what made him so happy was that Mrs. Simonsen had been extra kind to him and he thought she would probably marry him; then he would be the master of the bakery.
I don’t know how I happened to think of it, but while Schulze stood there talking, I stuck that little china doll right into the dough. Schulze didn’t notice what I was doing. I smoothed over the place where I had poked the doll in and a moment after, Schulze vanished in the bake-house.
Ha, ha, ha! What fun it will be when he finds the doll in the dough! He won’t be the least bit angry; he will only laugh. So I sat still on the barrel and waited, but he didn’t come back.
Oh, well, he just wanted to fool me, I was sure; for of course he must have found the doll.
I stole over to the bake-house door. The molasses cakes were in the pans, ready to be put into the oven that minute.
Schulze never likes to have any one come into the bake-house, so I dared not go farther than the door. Not a word did he say about the doll. He was surely trying to fool me into thinking he had not found it. Suddenly I remembered that I had not studied my lessons; so I at once started on a run for home.
That whole evening I laughed to myself every time I thought of the doll in the cakedough. I would get the little thing back from Schulze in the morning. But he said not a word about it then, either; nor was he the least bit roguish or joky.
Suppose he hadn’t found the doll! Suppose it was baked in a cake and sold, and should get into some one’s stomach and the person should die of it!
That was a dreadful thought, and I grew so frightened, oh! so frightened; but I didn’t dare say a word to any one about it. Mrs. Simonsen and Schulze would both be furious, and perhaps some one in the town was dying to-day—it might be just now—some one dying from that molasses cake with my little china doll in it!
Oh, how I did suffer that day! I begged Father for twenty öre and spent it all on molasses cakes, for perhaps the little doll might be in one of those I bought. No such good luck. I ate so many molasses cakes, I got perfectly sick of them; I ate them with despair in my heart.
At last I stationed myself beside the steps of Mrs. Simonsen’s shop and stared at every one who came out who had bought molasses cakes. “Perhaps it is you who will get the doll in your stomach,—or perhaps it is you,” I kept thinking. But if it had been to save my life, I could not have said anything to them even though I was so worried.
When children bought the cakes, however, I took their cakes without any ceremony and squeezed them to find out whether the doll was inside. No, I did not find it.
At last I was really sick, I was so anxious. Several times I was on the point of going in and telling Mrs. Simonsen; but it would be so difficult and so frightfully embarrassing. Anyway, I couldn’t muster up courage enough to do it.
The day dragged on. At night I dreamed of the doll in the cake and in the afternoon when I came from school, I sat again on the steps of the bakery. Mrs. Simonsen stood in the doorway, sunning herself.
“It is warm and pleasant these days,” said Mrs. Simonsen.
Yes, I, too, thought it was warm. Indeed, I broke into a perspiration whenever I thought of the molasses cake with the doll in it.
“Why, true as you live, if there isn’t the Collector of the Port himself coming here,” exclaimed Mrs. Simonsen. “He’s even coming into the shop, I declare! Go away from the steps, child.”
Yes, it was really the old Collector himself, with his keen face, his bent back and his cap with broad gold braid on it. He stopped beside the steps, stuck his cane between the pavingstones and looked up at Mrs. Simonsen in the doorway.
“Is this Mrs. Simonsen who sells molasses cakes?”
Mrs. Simonsen curtsied.
“Yes, your honor,” she answered, respectfully.
The old wooden steps creaked under the Collector’s heavy tread. Now he was in the shop. I peeped in at the door.
“May I then ask you, my good woman,” continued the Collector, “what you call this?”
He searched in one vest pocket, searched a long time,—searched in the other vest pocket; then oh! wonder of wonders! Between his crooked thumb and big pointer finger, he held high in the air my little china doll!
The instant I saw it, I was awfully, awfully glad, for now I knew that no one had swallowed it, that it wasn’t lying in any one’s stomach causing pain if not death.
“What do you call this?” repeated the Collector, staring in a terrifying way at Mrs. Simonsen from under his bushy eyebrows.
There was utter vacancy in Mrs. Simonsen’s sky-blue eyes as she looked from the doll to the Collector and from the Collector to the doll. He had to ask her three times before she answered.
“That—that is a—a doll,” said Mrs. Simonsen at last, so frightened that she was ready to sink to the floor.
“Yes, perfectly true—a doll. But then may I ask what a doll has to do in my molasses cake? What has it to do there, I ask you?”
“In your molasses cake?” exclaimed Mrs. Simonsen in the utmost astonishment. It seemed, however, as if she were a little braver now that the talk came to molasses cakes. There she felt herself surer.
“Yes, right in the molasses cake,” snapped the Collector. “I sat drinking my coffee and eating my cake, when I suddenly felt something sc-r-runch between my teeth. I came within a hair’s breadth of getting it in my throat and choking to death,—giving up the ghost instanter; and that molasses cake came from you,” concluded the Collector, putting his silver-mounted cane right against Mrs. Simonsen’s breast as if it were a pistol.
“Has the Collector found a doll in his molasses cake?” cried Mrs. Simonsen in dismay.
“Exactly, my much respected Mrs. Simonsen,—a doll in my molasses cake.”
Then there was a great to-do! Schulze was called from the bake-house and in his baker’s cap and apron stood there talking German and insisting that he knew nothing about the doll. The Collector scolded and fumed, and Mrs. Simonsen never got any further than to say, “But, your honor, your esteemed highness——” before the Collector interrupted her:
“Keep still, I say. It is I who will talk.”
Oh, how frightened I was! Several times I was about to spring in and say that the doll was mine and that it was I who had put it in the dough; but I didn’t dare.
“I will just give you notice, my good woman, that hereafter no cakes for me shall be purchased here;” and the Collector struck his cane on the floor many times with great emphasis.
When he said that, I felt so sorry for Mrs. Simonsen and nice kind Heinrich Schulze that before I knew it, I was in the bakery.
“Oh, it was I who did it! It was I who put the doll into the dough,—just for fun,—just for a joke on Schulze. Oh, I have been so sorry about it—uh, hu, hu!” I threw myself down across the counter and lay there, crying and sobbing; but it was a relief to have told at last.
“Well, I must say!” exclaimed the Collector, but his tone and manner had changed. “Is it here we have the sinner? And you did that for fun? for fun?”
“Yes, I thought Schulze would find it right away,” I sobbed.
“Whose child are you?” asked the Collector. I told him through all my tears and without raising my head from the counter.
“H’m, h’m.” The Collector cleared his throat. “Well, well. Let it pass, my good Mrs. Simonsen. I shall, after all, continue to buy my molasses cakes here; they are exactly to my taste. And you, child,”—he tapped my head with the silver head of his cane,—“you must find some other kind of fun than putting dolls into molasses cakes for people to choke on.” With that the Collector stamped heavily out of the shop.
Mrs. Simonsen was angry with me and so was Schulze; but I was so glad to have the doll in my hands again, so glad that no one had died from it, and that I had eased my conscience by confessing,—oh, I can’t express how glad I was!
“Please don’t be angry. I did it just for a joke, you know. I will never, never do anything like that again. No, indeed, indeed I will not.”
But what do you think? Somehow, since that time, I don’t feel like going as often as I used to into Mrs. Simonsen’s shop or into the back yard to see Schulze; and I scarcely ever get a bit of molasses-cake dough any more.
I was perfectly disgusted that my splendid joke should have turned out not to be funny at all; but the doll that was baked in a molasses cake and all but swallowed by the Collector of the Port, I still treasure.