While the beefsteak, on Saturday, was being converted into such a savory dish, Molly, who wished to oversee the simmering, took that time to prepare the chicken. The one used for the pie, last Sunday, she had prepared, while Marta was busy elsewhere; this week she wanted to show her how it was to be neatly done.
She had ordered the chicken (or rather, yearling fowl; for it weighed over three pounds, and Molly was not paying the price of chicken in September) to be sent home with the feet on, for two reasons: first, because the butcher usually chops them off at the joint, or above it, when they should be taken off just below, else when roasted the flesh shrinks up, and they display an unsightly bare bone; and, secondly, because the feet, properly prepared, are too valuable, for gravy, to lose.
Molly began by picking over the bird to remove a few stray feathers; then she took off the stove-lid, put some paper in the fire, and quickly moved the bird over the flame, taking care not to blacken the skin.
“Now, Marta, if you are ready, I want you to pay great attention, because if you can clean a fowl you can also clean a duck, goose, or turkey; the process is the same, and either, improperly done, though you may remove everything that ought not to remain in it, will never taste the same. If the entrails are broken, it imparts the odor of the barnyard to the whole.
“You see I cut the neck off close to the body, leaving as little of it on as I can; but, before beginning to cut, push the skin well down toward the body, so that there will be plenty of skin to cover the place where the neck has been. Cut off the feet just below the joint; then cut the skin at the back of the neck, an inch or so down, and with your forefinger loosen the crop all round, and take it out without breaking or emptying it. Next cut a slit right under the rump, large enough to run two fingers in. If this were a goose or turkey, you would need it large enough to admit your whole hand into the body. Before attempting to draw out the entrails, loosen with your finger all the tiny strings that attach them to the body. Be certain your fingers can pass between the contents of the stomach and the body in every direction without obstruction; then bend your hand or fingers round the mass, and draw it forward; this will bring the whole out in a ball. Be careful not to drag it by any particular part, or you will break the entrails, and the whole process be an unclean one; or you may spoil the fowl by breaking the gall, the bitter of which cannot be washed away. Cut off the vent, which will free the main entrail. If properly managed, the bird will be quite clean inside, and need only wiping with a wet cloth; if not clean, pour lukewarm water through it.”
Molly worked while she talked, suiting the action to the word when possible; and when the entrails of the fowl lay on the table, quite unbroken, she showed Marta the clean inside.
“You see this needs washing neither inside nor out; and that is the great object,—to prevent the contents of the entrails getting on the bird; for if they do, to my mind, no amount of washing will cleanse it.”
“Now I lay the bird aside, and prepare the giblets, which make gravy. You see this small, dark-green bladder attached to the liver? That is the gall. I cut it off, but am careful to leave a bit of the liver with it to avoid breaking. Put the liver in cold water. This hard, silvery-blue lump is the gizzard; it must be freed from all skin and strings; and by cutting it carefully on the wide side, without penetrating the inner skin, it can be peeled off, leaving the inside whole, thus avoiding the usual mess. This outer flesh throw into the water with the liver. Now for the feet.”
Molly put them in a quart bowl, and poured water from the kettle—which she was careful to see was actually boiling—upon them, covering them all over.
“Now, Marta, if you do this yourself, never attempt to scald with water that is not boiling, however near the point it may be; and do not put them in hot water and set them on the stove to come to the boiling-point. Either of these methods will so set the skin that it will not come off without the flesh, while these, you see, will peel easily enough.” She had taken, as she spoke, a clean cloth in one hand, and with a fork lifted one of the feet out of the hot water, then quickly rubbed the thin, yellow skin, which came off as readily as the skin from a ripe, scalded tomato; then she bent back each nail and that, too, came off, leaving the foot delicate, white, and clean. The rest were done in the same way. “The only thing necessary is great quickness; the skin gets ‘set’ as the water cools.
“You can put the fowl away now till to-morrow, Marta, but the giblets I will put on to stew for gravy. Here are the feet, the heart, the neck, gizzard, and liver, all well cleaned. They need a pint of water, a slice of onion, a piece of carrot, as big as your thumb, cut in it, half a tea-spoonful of salt, and a sprig of parsley. Now if I had not these vegetables in the house, I should do without; but having them, the gravy will be much better. Let these giblets stew down very slowly, till only half remains; then strain, and you will find it is a solid jelly, when cold.
“Ah, Marta, what is the matter with the bread? and how comes it so late to-day?”
Marta was just taking from the oven the one loaf which formed the tri-weekly baking, and at a glance Molly knew it was a failure. It was a peculiar color,—a drab tone, instead of the bright, yellow brown it should have been,—and it looked flat.
“That I don’t understand,” said Marta; “it seemed to-day as if it would never rise.”
It must here be said that after Molly showed Marta bread-making, her bread had been very good. She had made it three times so well that Molly thought that part of her teaching was over. This was the fourth time, and it was evidently a failure.
She thought of all she had heard from experienced housekeepers,—how thankless a task it was to teach servants, for when they attain perfection, they lack the ambition to keep to the mark; they “run down,” as it were. For a moment Molly was appalled at the prospect of working so hard and faithfully with Marta, if it was to end thus; and then she remembered, if it should prove so in this case, it could not be possible that some girl would not be wise enough to see the advantage to herself of keeping up to a standard.
“Even if I have to change several times, at last I certainly shall find one who repays me; then I shall have a year or two of peace and comfort.”
But she did not make up her mind to the worst about Marta from this failure. It had been gradually becoming clear to her that Marta had some good qualities and many faults. Whether the qualities balanced the faults was something she had seriously to consider when she had had longer trial; and which would depend much on whether, once knowing a thing thoroughly, she could be trusted to do it.
“Marta, nothing of this sort can happen without a cause; try to think what it can be.” Molly studiously refrained from showing her vexation, for she really wanted to find out whether Marta had erred through carelessness or ignorance; and the only way to get at the facts was, not to frighten her into deception by seeming angry.
“I cannot think, unless the yeast was not good; I was very careful.”
“Get me the rest of the cake of yeast.”
When she brought it, Molly broke it. It broke off short, and smelt quite good; had it been stale it would have pulled like dough, or smelt bad.
“No, the yeast is good, and in proof of it I must make something else with it. But I think you must have put it in too hot water.” As she spoke she had cut the loaf. “This looks just like bread made with scalded yeast, or that had risen too slowly from having too little yeast.”
“No, ma’am, I am sure the water was not too hot.”
“And it could not have been chilled when you set it to rise, I know. Ah, there’s one thing, Marta! perhaps you forgot to stir the yeast after you dropped it in the water, or did not do it sufficiently, and it remained at the bottom and never went into the bread at all.”
This seemed the certain solution, if what Marta said about the water was true; but the girl shook her head.
“No, I am sure I stirred it, and it all went into the flour.”
Molly looked at her,—could she be telling the truth? If she had not known the bread had had long enough to rise, she would have thought it had been put into the oven directly the dough was in the pan, without being allowed to rise; but that she knew could not be, for she had seen it rising, and wondered why it should be so late. She wished now she had asked before it was baked; but Marta had been out of the way, and when she returned to the kitchen the matter had slipped from her mind.
“I have told you to warm the flour. I suppose you didn’t make it very hot.”
“No; I did everything just as you showed me.”
Molly said nothing. Marta must be untruthful; this was a more unpleasant thing to discover than the failure of the bread.
“Well, we must have bread; it is four o’clock, and Saturday. I will make a rye loaf, because it needs to rise only once after it is mixed, and by seven o’clock it will be ready to bake.”
Molly measured the flour and set it to warm (she meant to make this bread herself, because she was much quicker than Marta). As she poured the hot water into the cold, to make the right temperature for the yeast, a thought struck her;—she always dissolved the yeast in the tin pint measure, and Marta did the same.
“Marta, after you put the yeast in the water, did you set it on the stove?”
“Yes, ma’am, the water was a little cool, and I set it there to dissolve; but I did not let it get a bit hot, and it was quite back of the stove.”
“That is the mystery then!” Molly had remembered hearing a lady speak of having done the same thing herself; and though it was back of the stove, and the water could not get hotter, the yeast, being at the bottom in contact with the hot iron, had baked or scalded. Of one thing she was very glad; Marta had immediately owned the fact, and the failure had not come from her neglect of any of the rules Molly had laid down,—only from not understanding cause and effect.