Harry and Molly had talked over the matter of the dramatic club, and whether they could afford to join it. Molly was old enough, not being a school-girl bride—did I ever mention that she was twenty-four?—and had seen enough of the world to know that, although a woman’s ideal of married life may be to sew in the evening, while her husband reads to her, or, if he is weary, to read to him while he rests, a man very often prefers something more exhilarating. Although Harry had never seemed bored by a tête-a-tête evening, she remembered that he had never yet been subjected to the long uninterrupted quiet of country winter nights, and she wanted to run no risk of him finding their life humdrum. He was not a reader in the true sense of the word,—that is to say, he read for amusement’s sake. If the book he read was not to his mind, he threw it aside, or fell asleep over it, and he was not so fond of reading aloud as Molly could have wished. However, this was one of the little disappointments most women, and some men, have to put up with, and she was thankful there was nothing worse. It is true that, finding Harry cared less for reading than herself, she had devoted herself to chess, of which he was very fond, and their evenings seldom passed without having the men out; but Harry was too much in sympathy with his wife not to know that chess, to her, was a sort of loving pleasure, and had often pretended disinclination; therefore the prospect of a weekly social meeting and the many little entertainments that would grow out of it was, for Harry’s sake, a pleasant one.
“What are the actual expenses?” she had asked.
“I don’t know, but from what Framley said, I imagine these are merely nominal, outside the entertaining of the club, which falls to every one’s share once in the season.”
“Yet as we are so limited in money matters, we can run no risks; what would be nominal to people with double our income may be serious for us. I think I had better wait and see Mrs. Framley.”
That lady called before Molly had been quite two weeks in Greenfield; she was very handsomely dressed, but of rather formal manners, which Molly came to know were natural to her, and rather a distress to herself. After the usual chat of a morning call Mrs. Framley said:—
“I believe Mr. Framley spoke to Mr. Bishop about our reading-society. Mr. and Mrs. Winfield were members, and as we limit the club to fifteen couples we thought it would be very pleasant if you and Mr. Bishop would take their places.”
Molly colored a little, hesitated, then said:—
“Will you please tell me the exact conditions and expenses?”
“Well, there are no particular conditions, except that no member is admitted that is not acceptable to all. Your names were proposed by Mr. Winfield and warmly welcomed; the expenses are nominal.”
Molly smiled. She had braced herself to be quite frank.
“But what is nominal? I may as well tell you our income is little more than sufficient for our needs, and we cannot risk incurring expense that may be quite beyond us.”
“But there are several of our members who are in the same position, and for that reason we made a few rules at the start so that our club should not break up, as so many have done, on the rock of emulous hospitality. The actual expenses have never exceeded $2 each person for the winter, and have oftener been under a dollar and a half. This is outside the cost of entertaining. Every member having a house is supposed to have the meeting once in the season, and as all our members are householders, and some very hospitable, when anything occurs to make such reception inconvenient it is gladly taken by some one else; but as some are much wealthier than others, a rule was made that no ice-cream, oysters or bought cakes were to be allowed, only sandwiches, tea, coffee and home-made cake, and I am glad to say one lady, one of the most wealthy, has nothing but home-made wafers and coffee.”
“Then I think Mr. Bishop and myself can accept the membership with an easy conscience, although I hardly see what acquisition I can be, for I cannot act. I don’t know whether my husband has any talent that way.”
“I think you may have hidden your light,” said Mrs. Framley, politely, “but at least half of the members are honorary and only give us the pleasure of their presence; in fact, I myself am only an onlooker.”
“Then I will have courage. When is the next meeting?”
“Next Wednesday, at my house, and I am pleased to think your first evening will be there.”
Molly thanked her, and soon after Mrs. Framley rose to go.
“I hope we shall see much of each other, Mrs. Bishop. Mrs. Winfield told me we should have a great deal in common, being both devoted to cooking-school.”
Molly responded suitably and Mrs. Framley left.
Molly had made some mixture for croquettes early in the morning, going minutely over every detail with Marta, using cold veal with a slice of the boiled pork, chopped together very fine, in place of chicken. Some of the stock in which the veal was boiled, which was now a firm jelly, was used, and as there was no cream, Molly used half a gill of milk to the gill of stock, and an egg beaten; the milk and stock were stirred to the butter and flour (see recipe for chicken croquettes) and boiled till thick and smooth, the meat and seasoning then added, and when it was all hot, the beaten egg. After this was in, the mixture was only stirred one minute, and then taken off the fire, the object being to bring the whole to boiling-point, but not to curdle the egg. The mixture was put out on a dish and set to get cold and firm, and Marta told to make it into croquettes according to her recipe.
As Molly was very anxious that Marta should thoroughly master the art of making croquettes, she had intended to oversee the forming and frying of these, which were for her lunch; but Mrs. Framley’s visit had interfered, and when she went to the kitchen she found Marta had one croquette on paper in the colander and was fishing in the hot fat with her skimmer.
“What is the matter, Marta?” asked Molly, although she could guess what had happened.
Marta pointed to the top of the fat, which was covered with crumbs of meat, and lifted two empty shells of croquettes from it.
“I see what has happened, Marta, but don’t be discouraged. You have some mixture left, and you must do this over again for breakfast to-morrow. I can tell you the reason of this accident, and once we know the cause of a failure, it can easily be set right. Had it not been for that one perfect croquette I should have said that the fat might not have been hot enough; that is a frequent cause of croquettes bursting,—they have time to melt inside before the crust is formed, but in this case the fault has been in the size. You must have made them too large. Don’t you think that one, which is perfect, was smaller than the others?”
“Yes, it was. I was afraid that one was too small.”
“It was just right, you see, and after this I think you’ll know. Before you put that croquette mixture away, Marta, keep out a large tea-spoonful, and after luncheon I will come and make some balls for soup.”
The veal stock Molly had carefully skimmed and strained in the morning, and intended to have a white soup for dinner. There was about a quart of strong jelly. One pint she put aside. It was so valuable that she did not mean to use a tea-spoonful more than necessary; the pint, with half a pint of milk, would be all that was required for soup; but as she had neither asparagus tops nor mushrooms nor celery to put in it, and veal soup is apt to be a little insipid without, she decided on forcemeat balls, made in the following way: To a large tea-spoonful of croquette mixture she added one of finely chopped parsley, as much thyme as would go on the end of a penknife, and a dessert-spoonful of bread crumbs; she beat an egg, and used enough only to make the whole into a soft paste; this she seasoned rather highly with pepper and salt, and made into little balls not larger than marbles, and they were set away till wanted.
As the soup was one Marta could not be expected to make, Molly went into the kitchen herself, half an hour before dinner, to do it; indeed, although she had left the cooking to Marta pretty much, she could not risk Harry’s comfort by waiting for the dinner to straggle in as Marta would have had it. This seemed her chief failing, an inability to see the necessity of dishing up quickly. After she had cooked a thing well, she ran the risk of spoiling it by her slowness in getting it on the table. No mishap had yet occurred, because Molly was on hand to rescue; but white sauce was left in the saucepan with risk of burning, and vegetables, after they were dressed, the same; but Molly hoped that, in a few weeks, seeing the importance she herself attached to time might have its effect on Marta.
The pint of veal stock, flavored, it will be remembered, with the vegetables boiled in it the day before, was put on to boil, and in a small saucepan she put a table-spoonful of butter and a scant one of flour, and stirred them together till they bubbled. She allowed them to cook together for a minute, stirring all the time, and called Marta’s attention to the fact.
“The white sauce you made last, Marta, although very smooth, had a little raw taste; this was because you added the milk before the flour was cooked sufficiently in the butter,—you put it in as soon as it bubbled.”
“I was afraid it would burn.”
“Of course you must not let it do that, but you see, once it bubbles, I draw the saucepan to a cooler part and stir till the flour is on the point of changing color, then I quickly add the milk or broth. The sauce will be an ivory white instead of the rather dead white that even fairly good sauce often is.”
She poured the stock to the flour and butter and stirred till smooth, and then added half a pint of milk,—“and, as I have no cream, Marta, I kept the egg left from the forcemeat balls—I used very little of it—to add to this soup the last thing, just as you do for the bisque of clams.” While the soup was all coming again to the boiling-point at the back of the range, Molly dropped the tiny forcemeat balls into boiling water, let them simmer half a minute, then strained them out and added them to the soup; then, with a caution to Marta not to let the egg curdle, she went to add a few touches to her toilette before Harry came home.