The next morning, bright and early, Molly came down-stairs. She was going to help get breakfast, as she always did whenever she had any dish new to Marta. Two or three times a week the breakfast came out of the dinner of the day before, and the stock she generally had on hand made such warmed-over dishes very different from the flavorless ones they too often are. For this reason alone she would have considered it cheap to buy a small soup-bone once a week, even if she had needed no soup, but every little drop—even half a gill—of soup that might be left was saved, and here Marta’s German training came in. Whatever she lacked in other ways, she had none of the disdain of economy, confounding it with stinginess, so common with untrained servants. Every bit of fat was put aside to try out once a week, every tea-spoonful of gravy or soup saved, and all bones put in one crock to be twice a week boiled down.
When there was not likely to be much left from dinner, Molly fell back on kidneys or ham and eggs for breakfast; once a week there was always fish in some form. This morning there was a little mutton on the bone, just enough for mince or fritters; there was, also, quite a piece of fish. She had bought it with that calculation, so the mutton was left for another day. Harry did not like codfish balls of salt cod, but delighted in them from fresh, and, as once boiled, it would keep a week, she had intended to have them twice. Her visitors, however, had changed that programme, but she had more than enough for breakfast. As she herself was in the kitchen, too, she decided to make hominy muffins, there being a cup of cold hominy.
As the frying fat would take half an hour to get hot enough, Marta had been told to put it on the range (covered to keep in the fumes) soon after the fire should be lighted. Molly drew it forward that it might be ready by the time she herself was so. She set Marta to mash the hominy fine with a fork, then to add to one cup of it a cup of corn meal, half a cup of milk, and two tea-spoonfuls of melted butter, two tea-spoonfuls of sugar, one egg, and one tea-spoonful of baking-powder, and when beaten long and hard, to put it into gempans and bake fifteen minutes.
While Marta was doing this, she herself flaked the cold fish quite fine and called Marta’s attention to the fact that she used the remaining sauce to moisten it.
“If I had not this sauce, I should make just enough stiff white sauce to moisten the whole; but this is even better, and as there is egg in it I need use only one more.”
To a cup of flaked fish and sauce, of which there were two good table-spoonfuls, she put one beaten egg; this made it into a stiff batter or mush that would not run, but drop from a spoon. She seasoned it with pepper, a very little salt, and then dipping a table-spoon in flour, dropped large spoonfuls of it in the fat, which was hot enough for croquettes. In two minutes they were round and light as puffs, and beautifully brown. Knowing Marta might have to make them some time without having any sauce, Molly wrote the recipe and gave it to her.
One cup of flaked fish, one table-spoonful of butter, one small one of flour, and one gill of milk; melt butter and flour together, let them cook a few seconds, pour to them a gill of boiling milk, stir well over the fire till the mixture leaves the sides of the saucepan; then it is done. Mix the fish with it, add two well-beaten eggs, and fry in spoonfuls in boiling lard.
Harry called these glorified fish balls. “In fact, Molly, they deserve some much more high-toned name.”
“Yes, but people who like the usual codfish balls, and they are the large majority, would not like these.”
“Another reason for not calling them fish balls, but I am one of the minority who do not like our Columbian dainty in its orthodox form; but even minorities have tastes and some right to have them considered. We’ll dub these ‘minority fish balls’ if you will have no more fanciful name.” (And “minority fish balls” they have become in that family.)
For dinner there was to be clear soup with royal custard, the stock for which had been made for bean soup, and only a pint used. Molly usually made two quarts at a time from a three-pound soup-bone, which served twice for soup and left a pint for gravies, sauce, etc. A pint and a half at each meal was ample, as neither Harry or herself took half a pint, and half usually found its way out to Marta, who straightway made it thick with bread and any vegetables there were; she did not approve of straining it.
To make a change, Molly intended to have in it royal custard, which would make it Consommé à la Royale.
“Marta, we are coming to the end of our eggs. I must have extra ones. Mrs. Lennox’s man comes to-day; you run over and ask her to please send him to me.”
When Marta returned she told her to beat one egg, then mix it with half a gill of the cold stock, and, as as there was no gill measure (something Molly had resolved to get, but had forgotten, though she could have better done without the half-pint), and the quantity must be so exact, she measured half a pint of water, and divided it in four, put the fourth part in a glass and marked it, then threw out the water, and filled up to the mark with stock. It made about four table-spoonfuls. Molly looked about for something smaller than a cup, and found a little Liebig’s “extract of meat” jar; this she buttered. The beaten egg and half gill of soup, with a pinch of salt, were mixed and poured into it, then a piece of paper was tied over it, a small saucepan of water put over the fire, and when it was quite boiling the jar was placed in it, the water reaching to the height of the custard, but without danger of boiling into it. The saucepan was then drawn aside so that the water might only simmer; if it should boil the custard would be spoilt. It was left for twelve minutes, and when taken out was quite firm. When cold the custard was cut into diamonds.
“When you have the soup hot, to-night, throw these diamonds into it, Marta.”
“I don’t suppose,” thought Molly, “any one ever made quite so small a quantity of savory custard before, yet more would be waste; we should not need it.”
At market she found a fine pair of sweetbreads, one of the dainties her butcher was not fashionable enough to charge a fancy price for, and indeed she found thirty cents a pair an outside price in Greenfield; these were twenty-five, however, and had they been as small as they sometimes are, she would not have bought them; but they were large and white.
As soon as they came they were put into salt and water and an hour later into boiling water, and parboiled for fifteen minutes, and cold water poured over them. All gristle and skin was now removed, and one cut into small pieces.
An hour before dinner the remains of the fricasseed fowl were brought out. Less than half had been eaten. There remained a wing, part of the breast, a leg, and the back and side bones. Molly cut the drumstick off, laid it with the side bones for a grill for breakfast,—it would help out the minced mutton; the rest, which were nice joints, she laid, covered with sauce as they were, in a plate, and told Marta to beat an egg, dip them in it, taking care every part was covered; then to lay them in abundance of cracker crumbs, pat them gently, and fry them just like breaded chops.
Meantime she had gathered the sauce from the chicken, which, by her direction, had been poured over it when the dish was changed, and put it into a small saucepan with a gill of stock, then the pieces of sweetbread, and put the saucepan where it would simmer. She then cut circles from slices of stale bread, half an inch thick, each circle cut in half to form canapées; she dipped each in milk, and then laid it in flour, covered it well with flour, and left it so.
“Marta, when you fry the chicken, drop these pieces of bread in the pot. Be sure to shake off all superfluous flour; handle them gently for fear of breaking, and let them fry pale brown. Be careful for the first minute after they are in; they will sputter, as they are wet. Lay them round the sweetbreads when you take them up.”
Marta had already sliced some tomatoes; these were laid in a dish, and bread crumbs, bits of butter, and pepper and salt sprinkled over each layer, on the top more crumbs and tiny bits of butter thickly strewed; then the dish was put to bake for half an hour.
“Marta, a few minutes before taking up the sweetbreads, stir into the gravy a small tea-spoonful of white thickening. I see it will not be thick enough with the fricassee sauce. Now you have potatoes on, tomatoes in the oven, your frying-kettle back of the stove, soup ready to heat up five minutes before dinner, chicken ready crumbed, and I will make a vanilla soufflé.”
Gouffe’s recipe for vanilla soufflé was as follows, Molly using only a third of the original, which calls for a quart of milk:
“One third of a quart of milk (not quite three gills), two table-spoonfuls of flour, two of sugar, a tea-spoonful of vanilla extract, a pinch of salt. Mix the flour with part of milk, set the rest to boil; when it boils, mix both together as you would corn starch; if by chance it is not smooth, strain it, return to fire, stirring well. Take it off when it boils, put to it the yolks of two eggs, and beat very well; then add the whites, beaten till you can turn the dish over without their slipping. The whites must be stirred in with greatest gentleness,—any quick stirring will cause them to liquefy and spoil your soufflé; when the whites are blended, bake in a buttered dish twenty minutes.”
Molly prepared it and told Marta to put it in the oven when she put the soup on to get hot, that they might have about finished dinner when it was done; but it was better for them to wait for the soufflé than the soufflé for them, for waiting means spoiling it. Molly made some hard sauce, which she flavored with wine, and then left the dinner to Marta.
When Harry came home his face showed he had something pleasant to say.
“Well, dear,” he said as soon as he was ready for dinner, “you’ve done it, and no mistake.”
“Done what?” She would have been alarmed if his face had not looked so very happy.
“You’ve captured my father.”
“Oh Harry, what do you mean?”
“He came into my office to-day, and told me he had enjoyed himself out here very much, and he was good enough to add that his opinion of me had not changed in the least, that I had been as wrong-headed as possible, and that if I had chanced to pick up a pearl instead of a pebble, no thanks to my own wisdom. I couldn’t agree, and told him I knew all along you were a jewel, but he had the best of me, for he said,
“‘Rubbish, sir! You didn’t know that she could boil an egg or sew a button on; no boy in love ever asks that! and you might have been a pretty miserable pair!’
“And it’s quite true, Molly. If you could not have mended your own clothes, and I knew it, I should have married you just the same; but I’m glad to have a fortune in my wife, and so I told the dad.”
“Well, is that all he said?” asked Molly, her cheeks flushed with pleasure, her eyes dancing.
“Oh, dear, no, he didn’t begin that way. He began by asking me how I expected to meet my quarter’s bills. I told him there would be none. At first he could not believe me, and I really believe he had come to give me a check to get us out of the need he thought we were likely to be in; but when I told him all, and showed him your first month’s accounts—stop a minute” (Molly made a dart forward to her desk)—“I abstracted that first month’s figuring, my dear, and have it in my pocket, and it will remain there; that is my property, my trophy. Well, when I showed that, and told him that I, with my little income, lived just as well as he did, he was conquered.
“‘How does she do it?’ he asked; and then I had to tell him that you put your time and thought to the little money and doubled its value.”
“Oh, Harry, how could you exaggerate so?” But Molly’s head was turned away and her eyes running over with happy tears. How well was she repaid for the work she had taken such pleasure in! Every tone of her husband’s voice revealed his pride in her, and his appreciation, veiled though it was by his gay, bantering manners, and she was grateful for the training that had made it all so easy to her.