Molly congratulated herself on her unusual good fortune in securing such a girl as Marta, when she saw, in initiating her into the bedroom work, how well she did it. But she was not to be without her trials, even with this treasure, any more than every other housekeeper. When she knew, by the time, that the bread was ready, being deep in the draping of some chintz she had had in their city room, she told Marta to run down and put it in the oven, and to take the cover off the cake, but on no account to move or shake it, as the bread would go in on the other side of it.
Marta ran down, if the term can be applied to the lumbering movement with which she hurled herself down-stairs. Molly heard her carrying out her order, and then she heard a sound that elicited an exclamation of annoyance. It was the sound of the oven door closing with a tremendous bang.
“My poor cake! how vexatious!” For a moment vexation impelled her to scold Marta, but if Molly was one thing more than another, she was reasonable. Her blame was for herself more than for the girl. “How could she know? I must give her a general caution; I suppose the cake is gone utterly.”
It was. She met Marta returning to her up-stairs work smiling serenely.
“Marta, I want you to come and look at the result of banging the oven door in that way when cake is in the oven,—and you must remember, too, never to set a pot heavily on the range; when a cake has once risen, until quite done, any sudden jar will cause it to settle down. Look at this; you see the cake is all sunken.”
Marta stood, the picture of concern, her teeth pressed tight over her under lip.
“Never mind, we’ll look on the cake as a lesson; to-morrow you must make another as you saw me do this. Go and finish up-stairs, and I think, as we have no cake to-day, I will make a pie for dinner. When you come down you will see me make the paste, as everything I do I hope you will do later.”
When Marta came down Molly weighed out six ounces of butter and eight ounces of flour—the butter was straight from the ice-box and very firm; these she put together in a chopping-bowl with a pinch of salt, opened the window to let in the cool air, and then chopped butter and flour together, but not very fine, the butter still remaining in well-defined bits, some as large as white beans, when she left off. Making a hole in the centre, she poured in a small half cup of ice-water, and made it, with as little pressure as possible, into a firm dough. A few bits of butter and flour fell from it, but she did not stay to work them in smoothly, explaining to Marta, as she turned all out on to the pastry-board, that they would roll in smooth, and the less handling the pastry had the better. She rolled it out half an inch thick, folded it in three, putting any little flakes of butter that might be on the board upon it, and rolled it out again. (This was done as quickly as possible, so that the warm air of the kitchen might not soften the butter.) She dredged very little flour on it, and folded it again in three, rolled it again, and then once more folded and rolled it, making three times in all.
“Now, if I were in a hurry, I should use the pastry at once, as it is ready, but it will be so much lighter and better by being put on the ice that I shall leave it till I come out to see to the dinner. I will have cold lamb and salad for my lunch,—you know how to prepare the lettuce.” And Molly left the kitchen, knowing she had now some hours in which she could attend to getting things into place, etc.
Hardly was her luncheon cleared away, however, when Marta brought in a card, saying a lady had given it to her, but she didn’t know what she wanted. It bore the name of Mrs. Merit, and realizing that the visitor was left standing at the front door, Molly hurried out to receive her. She apologized for Marta’s keeping her there.
“Don’t mention it. This is a very early call; but coming into a furnished house is so different from an empty one,—you get settled in a few hours; besides, I knew this was your first experience of housekeeping, and if one wants to be of real use it is of no use to leave it till your difficulties are over.”
The lady had followed Molly into the parlor as she spoke, and seated herself in the rocking-chair.
“You are very kind,” said Molly, thinking how very friendly it was.
“I mean to be kind, my dear. I know the difficulties of inexperienced young housekeepers, and I want you to know that your nearest neighbor is ready to run right in any time you want, and if there’s anything I can tell you, why, you know where to come.”
“Thank you very much indeed,” said Molly gratefully; “I shall not forget.”
The conversation now drifted off into talk about Greenfield, and Molly learned the names of most of her near neighbors, and, it must be confessed, more of their peculiarities than she cared to hear.
“I’m your nearest neighbor on this side the street, but there’s poor Mrs. Lennox right opposite, poor thing! I’m glad she’s got some one to take Mrs. Winfield’s place to her. She was a real good neighbor, and when one’s life’s as hard as hers, a friendly neighbor is a good deal.”
Molly did not ask why Mrs. Lennox was qualified by the adjective “poor” nor why her life was hard. She began to recognize in Mrs. Merit a type of good-hearted women given over-much to interesting themselves in other people’s affairs. Mrs. Merit rocked serenely on, however, and proceeded to question Molly on her knowledge of housekeeping and to give some strong hints on economy.
“You see, my dear, young people start off with an idea of style, and it takes them some time to find out the best and cheapest way of doing things, and there’s receipts I’ve got that I’ve altered and changed so’s they don’t cost half, and taste, to my thinking, just as well, and no danger of dyspepsia, and I’d be glad to send you over my written book.”
Again Molly thanked her, and promised to avail herself of the book.
“Yes, and you’ll find your money goes a deal further; my receipts don’t call for eggs and butter as if they grew out on the bushes.”
“Well, you see,” said Molly timidly, “we need so little of anything that even a recipe which calls for what seems many eggs or much butter can generally be divided by four for us, and the four eggs or half pound of butter become only one egg and two ounces of butter; so we can have the good things and still spend little.”
“But then you have so little of it, and it wastes time to make things in small quantities.”
“Yes, but my time is not valuable, and besides it would be no economy for me to make things too plain, for we might not eat them at all; and the same would happen if I made much at a time of anything,—it would not be eaten up. Mr. Bishop likes variety.”
“Well, I believe in husbands’ liking food that’s according to their means, and not in young women wearing their lives out cooking for them. Mr. Merit was always satisfied with a plain, wholesome dinner, and that I took care he had.”
Mrs. Merit’s words were verging on the unpleasant, but her manner was so unconscious that Molly felt sure only kindness was meant; she was simply instructing the young and inexperienced wife.
“Now there’s poor Mrs. Lennox, she’s got four children, and her husband is as poor as a church mouse, and as pernickety about his eating—nothing she can get is good enough for him; and the way she manages to make both ends meet, and to dress them children as nice as any, is a wonder to every one, though, poor thing, she is wearing herself out.”
Shortly after, finding Molly was not curious about Mr. and Mrs. Lennox, Mrs. Merit protested that she was paying an unwarrantably long visit, rose and left, saying, as she did so, “You won’t be lonely long, you are not like strangers; being such friends of Mrs. Winfield, every one will make a point of calling very soon.”
Molly noticed, as she returned to the parlor, that Mrs. Merit was standing at the door of the house she had pointed out as Mrs. Lennox’s; doubtless she had gone to report her visit.
Molly went from her visitor to the kitchen. She had ordered in the morning a porterhouse steak and a dozen oysters on the half shell. As the butcher was also fishmonger, he had no objection to send so few, and she had impressed on him that both were to be sent after five, and the oysters opened at the house. She now told Marta, when they should come, to put the oysters into the ice-box at once, and went to assure herself that the fire was made up and would be ready by five o’clock to cook. She found, as she had feared, that Marta had forgotten, and the fire was at that stage of intense brightness which gives place to a mass of dead white ash a little later, but would quickly burn up with fresh fuel.
“How fortunate I came out, Marta; red as this fire is, in half an hour it would have been near out. Put a little coal on; when it is lighted well, not before, you can rake out the ashes and put on more coal, but not too much.” As she spoke she opened all the drafts.
She meant to have a ragout of the rougher part of the lamb—the neck piece—as a second dish; if Harry did not care for it at dinner, it would make a very savory one for breakfast. She cut it up into neat pieces; there was about a pound and a half of meat, very lean, and, properly treated, the tenderest in the whole sheep.
“If I had to pay the same for this part of the lamb as for the loin, I should still prefer it for boiling and stewing,” she said to Marta, “but so few people will believe it. Get me one onion and a carrot, and prepare them. I wish I had some canned peas, they would be such an addition; but I have not half the little things in store yet that I need.”
Molly was making this ragout, not that it was needed for dinner so much, although it made variety and a better-seeming table, but her chief thought was for the breakfast. Having the vegetables prepared, and the range being by this time hot on the top, she put a spider, containing a table-spoonful of butter and one of flour, on the stove, and told Marta to stir slowly till the flour and butter were pale brown, while she tied six sprigs of parsley and half a bay leaf together. When the flour and butter formed a smooth brownish paste, or roux, as the cooking-books call it, the carrots and onions, cut small, and the meat were added, with a half salt-spoonful of pepper, three level salt-spoonfuls of salt, and a tea-spoonful of vinegar. These were all stirred round, and a close cover put on.
“Now these have to be stirred every minute or so, to prevent burning, till brown, and while the ragout is cooking I will make a lemon pie. I have written the recipe, Marta, as I shall do all for the future, and you will keep the book in the kitchen. I will read it over to you.”
The recipe was, of course, written in German. Molly had not been able to do it without help from the dictionary, but she remembered that she was improving her German, which, indeed, was one of her reasons for taking a German girl, the compulsory practice would be so good for herself.
“Half a cup of fine bread crumbs, just enough milk to swell them, two eggs, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, two of butter, the juice of one lemon, the grated rinds of two. Beat sugar and butter to a cream, then the eggs and lemon juice, and last the bread and milk. You can make the mixture while I roll the paste and get the pie ready, but first I’m going to knock a few holes in this tin pie-plate, so that the crust may be light at the bottom.”
She took a small nail and hammer, and with it perforated the pie-plate till it looked like a colander. The paste was firm and hard, and Molly rolled it out with perfect ease, the third of an inch thick, without its once sticking to the board, which was lightly floured. She laid the pie-plate on it, and cut a circle a little larger than the tin to allow for the depth. Every touch she made was quick and light, just as if the paste were tulle or white satin. She turned the plate over, laid the paste on it, and pressed it only on the bottom, never touching the edges. She cut a little piece and put it in the oven to try it. Then she cut two long strips of paste, about an inch wide, and laid them lightly around the pie, so as to make the edge twice the thickness of the bottom; she gently pressed the lower edge of this strip to make it adhere to the pie, and then poured in the lemon mixture.
“Mr. Bishop doesn’t like meringue, or I would have kept out the two whites of eggs, to make it,” said Molly, as she took out the little “trier” she had in the oven.
It had risen a full inch, and “the separate flakes could be counted!” Marta exclaimed, as she saw it. Her intelligence only seemed to rouse when she saw something out of the ordinary routine of cooking, because, as Molly afterwards found, her ideal of cooking was what the man cook at the restaurant in Germany could do; she never expected to see a lady do them, and he had made puff paste just like this, and it seemed magic to her.
“And if she had never lived at the restaurant she would not have had intelligence enough to know what to admire. It is the old story,—to those who know nothing of art, a gay chromo is better than a fine painting,” said Molly, when she told Harry, who broke into good-natured laughter.
“Oh, my dear Molly, you are too delicious in your enthusiasm! What would our artists say to such a comparison?”
Molly joined in the laugh. “It sounds absurd, but the principle is the same. The poor girls who have no experience of good cooking or refined living can’t be expected to appreciate it.”
But this was in the evening, and we are digressing from the dinner.
By the time the pie was in the oven, the lamb had been twenty minutes in the spider,—Marta occasionally stirring it about. Two thirds of a pint of hot water was now added (it left plenty of gravy around the meat, yet did not cover it), the parsley was put in, and the spider closely covered and set where it would just simmer, as the success of the dish depended on its simmering, and not boiling. Molly waited to see it come to the boiling-point.
“Now, Marta, remember that to simmer means this,” she said, pointing out the gentlest little sizzling round the edge of the pan. “Perhaps you hardly think it is cooking at all, but that scarcely perceptible motion is what I mean when I say, ‘let it simmer;’ faster than that would be boiling. You must understand these distinctions if ever you hope to make a good cook. We are going to have Lima beans, and stuffed potatoes, and cheese canapées—to use up the baker’s bread—and, as I do not mean to be in the kitchen to-night except just as you broil the steak, I will get everything ready now.”
So saying, she cut slices of bread half an inch thick, then, with a large round cutter, cut circles; these she cut in half—they were not the true crescent shape that canapées should be, but they would answer; then she put a table-spoonful of butter in a small saucepan (using a saucepan, because to fry, or rather sauter, so little, the butter required would be twice as much if it had to go over the large space of a frying-pan), and then she fried four of the canapées a very light brown. When done she took them up, and grated about an ounce of cheese, and setting the canapées on a small tin ready for the oven, she heaped the grated cheese on them, then sprinkled on them a little pepper and salt.
“Marta, those are ready, but need not go into the oven till I tell you. At five you wash four large potatoes and put them into the oven; at a quarter past you can put the Lima beans into a saucepan of boiling water, with two tea-spoonfuls of salt and one of sugar; let them come quickly to the boil again.”
Molly took the pie out of the oven. It was beautifully brown, and the edge, half an inch thick when it went into the oven, was now more than double, and more flaky than real puff paste, as generally made.
“Now, Marta, I’ll leave you to set the table quite alone to-night, and to do everything by yourself, except broil the steak, which I have not yet shown you how to do, and to dress the vegetables. Chop ready for me two table-spoonfuls of parsley and one slice of onion very fine.”
Molly had to congratulate herself on having gotten so far forward with the dinner, for just as she was leaving the kitchen Mrs. Lennox came.
“Mrs. Merit told me you were settled and ready to see your neighbors, so I would not delay coming over. I have not the same good excuse as she has for so early a visit, for, beyond good feeling, I cannot be of any use to any one, my hands are so completely tied with my family; but you are Mrs. Winfield’s friend, and you seem no stranger to me.”
“But no excuse is needed,” said Molly. “I think it exceedingly kind.”
Mrs. Lennox was a very nervous-looking woman, who had once been very pretty, and was still young enough to be so. When they had talked a little while, it proved that one of Molly’s dear friends had been a school-fellow of Mrs. Lennox. This made them quite intimate in a few minutes, and Molly found herself talking freely of her hopes and plans.
“Oh! but how could you have the courage to keep house, when you had no family to make boarding impossible?”
“But it needed more courage to go on boarding, I think,” laughed Molly.
“Oh! wait a bit, till your servant goes off at a moment’s notice, just as you have company to dinner; or till your husband begins to criticise the food, or—if you are too newly married for that—till you see him look at the table in despair, and sit down and eat as if it were all chaff,—those are the things that will make you long to give it all up.”
“But,” said Molly gravely, for that bitter phrase, “if you are too newly married for that,” shocked her, “I don’t think, if girls served me so half a dozen times a year, it would be more than a temporary annoyance, while to board is a daily and hourly discomfort; as for my husband, I shall try at least to give him as good food as we had while boarding.”
“Yes, as good food, but it is the variety; on small means it is impossible to have it. You smile! it is all smooth sailing for you yet, but I assure you the first time you find yourself without a girl you’ll realize what I mean; but it is beautiful to see your enthusiasm, and recalls my own early married life.”
She sighed; Molly pretended not to hear her, although she was full of sympathy for her weary looks; she laughed lightly and said, “Well, I don’t believe I should be in despair to find myself without a maid! It would worry Mr. Bishop for my sake, but not me.”
“That’s all very well in theory, but when it comes to having the breakfast to get, the fires to light, and you find the bread won’t rise, and nothing goes as it ought to go, you’ll be inclined to sit down and cry.”
“But I think things would go better than that. I am so fond of cooking that I shall practice a good deal, so that, if I find myself deserted, we shall not feel the loss beyond less leisure for me.”
“You are fond of cooking—that’s different! I hate it, but then that’s because I have it to do, I suppose, for, though I sympathized with you in advance in case you are left without, I never have a servant; and as I have four children, and make all their clothes and my own, you may suppose I have no time to spend over the fire. We are obliged to live very plainly, and if I can manage to get the food on the table in an eatable form, that’s all I try for. I tell you this now because, if, as I hope, we should become more than formal acquaintances, you will know what to expect at my house.”
There was a pained look in the weary face, as if the saying had not been pleasant, and Molly’s heart ached at the sad picture of toil her words conjured up. And yet, after she had left, Molly remembered the dress of cheap material, but trimmed to excess, and thought of the weary hours it had taken to make, and wondered why she did it.
Molly, when again alone, hesitated what to do. She knew of several bits of sewing she had to do for the house, but she was a little tired; and besides, after a week or two Marta would not need her so much in the kitchen—or, at least, she hoped not; meanwhile, the new “Century” was on the table, and she took it up to read till it became necessary for her to go and direct Marta.
Molly had had a hint or two from her two visitors that they considered she would be making rather a slave of herself, but she had no such intention; she did not think it harder work to be in the kitchen than at the sewing-machine. At half past five she went to see if the table was neatly laid, and made a few changes, calling Marta’s attention to them; then went into the kitchen, and found the parsley and onion not nearly fine enough; these she chopped over, and by that time the potatoes and Lima beans were done.
“Pour the water off the beans, Marta, then dress them just as you did the cabbage last night; stir them well around, and move them to a part of the range where they will just simmer. When you have done it, you can put the oysters on the table, six on each plate, the points to the centre, with a quarter of a lemon in the middle of each.”
While she was speaking, Molly had put a little milk on to boil, and cut the tops from the potatoes, and holding them in a cloth, scooped out the inside with a spoon, into a bowl which she had made hot, without breaking the skin; when the potato was all out, she added to it a table-spoonful of butter and the parsley and onion, moistening the whole with hot milk, and then with a fork she beat it rapidly back and forth till very white and light; then she seasoned with salt and pepper to taste, and filled the skins, which she had put to keep hot again, and set them in the oven. The milk being boiling and the process quick, they had not had time to cool much.
“Now, Marta, heat the gridiron and put your dishes to get hot; then put the steak on, open all the drafts that the smoke may go up.”
The fire was clear and not too high, and she watched while Marta broiled it, directing her to turn the steak frequently.
“Keep the gridiron tilted from you, so that the grease runs to the back of the stove, and don’t be frightened at its flaring; better it should flare than smoke; it is the smoke, not the flame, that blackens the steak.”
When it had broiled eight minutes it was to be laid on a hot dish, with a lump of butter on it, and liberally seasoned with pepper and salt. But as Molly heard Harry come in, she left the butter and seasoning ready and went to him, trusting Marta to bring the dinner to table, telling her, as she left the kitchen, to put the cheese canapées in the oven, on the upper shelf. They would be brown by the time they had finished the meat.