When Molly made the humiliating discovery that she had forgotten the yeast, Harry, who was smoking and reading, looked up.
“What shall I do, that baker’s bread is so sour?”
“I’ll tell you, let’s sally forth and get it! It’s a lovely night!”
“Would you?” exclaimed Molly, brightly.
“Why not? You don’t suppose you are going to monopolize all the merits and reap all the glory of this housekeeping, do you? Why, I should not be able to have one of the little jokes other married men seem to enjoy at their wife’s expense.”
“I hate such jokes,” said Molly; “they are so cheap, and generally unjust.”
“Then I promise I won’t make them. I’ll never boast of the servant girls I escort out from New York, nor of the baskets I carry, nor the”—
“You’ll have no chance if you respect the truth,” said Molly, laughing. “Now if we are going, I’ll put on my things.”
The little town of Greenfield was just venturing on electric lights, and, with the band of its skating-rink making music, had quite a dissipated appearance, as the young couple strolled around in search of a grocer, and Molly, at the same time, found out a few other facts she was anxious to know, and had not yet had time to discover.
As they walked home, Harry said, hesitating, “My dear, I don’t want to interfere with your housekeeping, and I feel my own insignificance in approaching such a subject, but I would diffidently suggest that our family is at present very small, and neither you nor I like stale bread. Do you think Marta can be induced to consume all the ‘left over’ loaves?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then don’t you think we had better try another baker who doesn’t make sour bread, or”—this was said very slowly, as if it would be a sad necessity—“I might bring it out from New York.”
Molly laughed merrily.
“I think I see you! Surely then you could joke about your martyrdom. No, my dear boy, you’re going to have no such toothsome morsel as that for a joke, but I see you are afraid of stale bread.”
“The truth is, I have a lively recollection of living in the country and eating bread a week old, and older still sometimes, when the general appetite failed, and I don’t believe I’m up to that sort of thing now.”
“I don’t think you are, so you will not be tested. Now-a-days one doesn’t fear baking as one used to do. It is no more trouble to make bread three times a week than to boil potatoes.”
“I’m delighted to hear it. I’m learning every hour my own benighted ignorance.”
When they reached home Molly went into the kitchen and put one quarter of the yeast cake in a pint of warm water, which she made Marta, who was to make the next bread, feel was just about as warm as milk from the cow, then she put a heaped quart of flour in the mixing-bowl and set it in the oven with the door open, telling Marta to stir it in a few minutes that it might get evenly warm through.
“I am doing this, Marta, because I do not know this flour. It may be very new or damp; by drying it I shall be on the safe side. In cold weather you must warm it always, so that the water, yeast, and flour are all about the same temperature.”
When the yeast was quite dissolved by stirring, she put into the water one tea-spoonful of salt and two of sugar, made a hole in the flour and poured the liquid in, and the whole made a soft dough which slightly stuck to her hands.
“If it is necessary just shake in a little flour from the dredger; never throw it in by the handful, as the less flour you work with the better.” As Molly spoke she steadied the bowl with one hand and with the other worked the dough with her fist from the side to the middle, so that in five minutes what had been the under part was all brought over to the top, and the whole was smooth and very elastic to the touch.
Marta watched with interest and, as Molly could see, surprise.
“My mother always made her bread thin at night, and put in more flour in the morning.”
“Yes, but your mother and mine had no certainty that the yeast was good, and it was better to ‘prove it’ by using part of the flour for a sponge than to waste the whole, but now we use compressed yeast, which we are sure is good if fresh.”
Marta did not look convinced. She doubtless fancied it was some new-fangled notion of Molly’s.
The bread was left, covered with a clean cloth, on the table free from draught, for it was a mild night and she knew it would be risen well in the morning without going into a warm spot.
The next morning, as it was Marta’s first, Molly was up and down-stairs a few minutes after her, and found she had taken away the ashes and was struggling with the fire; with Molly’s help, however, it was soon burning in the stove.
“Now brush off the stove quickly before it gets hot, and do so every morning, and on Saturday it needs thorough cleaning.” Molly looked at the bread as she spoke.
“Fill the kettle now, after you pour out the water left in it, set it in the hole of the stove, and then look at the bread before I touch it that you may see how it should be. It is quite light, as you see, more than double the size it was last night; now while you go and dust the dining-room, brushing up any crumbs there may be first, I will work the bread over, then you can come here and sweep your kitchen and the piazzas. Molly worked the bread over faithfully for five minutes,—had the quantity been larger, of course the time would have been in proportion,—and then she set it in a warm spot back of the range, and went herself into the parlor to arrange it, knowing Marta would not be so quick this first morning as she hoped she might become later. At seven o’clock the work was done, and Molly told Marta she must do every morning exactly as this morning.
“Now we will begin to get breakfast, but I shall let you do it, because you will see that you have ample time without my help, and it must always be on the table at eight o’clock. Bring the chops I prepared yesterday, two eggs, and three potatoes.”
Molly looked at the fire, found it bright and the oven hot; she put a shovelful more of coals each side of the fire, and then showed Marta how to brush the potatoes with a little new brush she had brought for the purpose.
“See the difference, Marta? Wash them ever so carefully, you can’t make the skins so clean that the minute you put the brush to them they do not look several shades lighter.”
They were put into the oven.
“Now, Marta, bring that packet of cracker meal I pointed out yesterday, and pour at least half on a dish; now a saucer and the pepper and salt. Break one egg, and put the yolk into the saucer, the white into a cup; if there were more chops we would use both white and yolk,—as there are so few, for economy’s sake we will use only the yolk; put to it two teaspoonfuls of cold water and beat it with a fork. Now season those chops with salt and pepper, remembering never to do so before cooking if they are to be broiled or cooked without breading.”
Marta was rather clumsy, but still Molly repressed her own itching fingers, knowing the girl would do better in future if let alone now.
“Now lay a chop in the egg,—take care it moistens every part,—lift it out with the left hand, let it drain an instant and lay it on the cracker meal; now with your dry right hand send the meal all over it till every bit of the meat is covered with the white dust, then lay it aside. Now do the others in the same way.”
Molly looked at the clock; it was nearly half past seven.
“Hurry, Marta, get the can of lard, and, as that spider is not deep, I am going to fry in this agate saucepan; it is just about broad enough for a chop. Put in it at least a pound of lard, set it where it will get hot, yet not boil till you are ready. Now you can grease the muffin-pans, leaving a teaspoonful of lard in one, and then make the muffins. We need only a dozen, so you can take half a cup of corn meal, half a cup of flour, and a teaspoon of baking-powder and half one of salt. Mix them quickly. Now a scant table-spoonful of sugar, and milk to make a thick batter, break in an egg, and beat it all steadily three minutes by the clock,—no, beat just as if you were beating eggs, quickly, till it froths. Now pour the lard from the muffin-pan in it, stir well, and fill the pans nearly full; set them in the oven,—they will bake in fifteen minutes. Go now and set the table, and do it quickly.”
On second thought Molly went with her and helped, because she could not easily find things. She found she had remembered fairly well the directions about the cloth.
“Put the cups and saucers at my left, and that mat for the meat before Mr. Bishop; the potatoes, on a folded napkin, you will place on one side, the muffins exactly opposite them on the other, butter within easy reach of both. Put this tile for the coffee at my right hand, the sugar and the milk-pitcher in front, those geraniums in the centre, a knife and fork and small plate to each; and now come out into the kitchen, set the plates to warm, and a platter. I’ll put the lard now on the hottest part of the stove, and a cover over it, so that the smell of hot grease may be as little as possible, and while it gets hot you can grind the coffee. You remember how to make it? Put a pint of milk on to boil, and set the other pint away. Now try the fat, and remember that what I am now going to teach you with these chops applies to all kinds of frying. The way you crumbed those chops is the way you must crumb cutlets, fish, oysters, or croquettes. They are better crumbed a little while before they are fried, as they have time to dry.”
Molly had cut, as she spoke, some little cubes of bread.
“Come and watch, Marta. This fat is very hot, but I doubt if it is hot enough, although it begins to smoke.”
She dropped in one bit of bread, it sizzled, but after waiting a few seconds remained white.
“It is not hot enough or that bread would have colored. Get the colander, set it on the stove with this sheet of grocer’s paper in it. When you take any fried article out of the fat, lay it first on the paper, then on a hot dish. Now let us try the fat again.”
Another bit of bread was dropped into the fat, and this time it colored in a few seconds.
“Remember, if I had six chops instead of three I should let the fat get hotter yet, because they would cool it so much. Now drop each chop gently in,—that’s the way. If they were very thick, as soon as they were brown I would draw back the fat, and leave them longer; as it is, two minutes will brown them beautifully, and they will be cooked through.”
“Two minutes!” murmured Marta, in expostulating tones. She could hardly be expected to credit that.
“Yes; you forget this fat is far hotter than any oven would be, and they are completely immersed in it. You can take up the potatoes if they are done, wipe them and lay them on the plate, and I will take up the muffins. The two minutes are up; look at the chops: you see they are most beautifully brown all over alike!”
Marta exclaimed, “Schön!” and stolidly attentive as she had been to all else, the golden chops evidently appealed to some hidden well of enthusiasm. They were taken up, laid first on the paper, then on the dish, and put to keep hot while the breakfast was taken to the table.
When the chops were going in, Molly said, “When we are settled, I shall want you always to put a little parsley on the dish with fried things.”
The muffins were light and crisp, the potatoes looked far more tempting in their pale-yellow, well-brushed skins than they usually do, and altogether the breakfast was as dainty a meal as heart could sigh for.