CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER I. | |
Mr. and Mrs. Bishop try the Experiment | [1] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
At Home | [7] |
| CHAPTER III. | |
Molly’s First Bill of Fare | [19] |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
Bread-Making—Breakfast—Baked Potatoes—Corn Muffins—Breaded Chops—How to fry | [30] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
How to manage the Fat that has been used for frying—Cup Cake | [37] |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
What “Simmering” means | [40] |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
Molly and Mrs. Lennox—Economical Buying makes Good Living | [52] |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
Beef Pot-Pie—Leg of Mutton—Two Roasts—Several Wholesome Economical Dishes | [58] |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
Veal Cutlets, Breaded | [63] |
| CHAPTER X. | |
Details of Molly’s Management—Recipes | [70] |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
What to do with a Soup-Bone | [79] |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
Molly and Mrs. Lennox on the Ruffle Question—Fricassee of Mutton—Cabbage again | [86] |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
Preparing to save Work—Brown Thickening—White Thickening—Caramel | [93] |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
Marketing—Apple Pudding—Liver and Bacon—Braised Beef—Boiling Puddings | [95] |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
Rolls—Baked Liver—Croquettes—What was the Matter with them—Hotch-Potch | [100] |
| CHAPTER XVI. | |
Rye Bread—Oyster Patties—Knuckle of Veal, à la Maître d’Hôtel—A Savory Dish | [106] |
| CHAPTER XVII. | |
Mr. and Mrs. Bishop become Members of a Dramatic Club—Croquettes over again—Where the Mistake lay—White Soup | [111] |
| CHAPTER XVIII. | |
| [117] | |
| CHAPTER XIX. | |
Summary—Lamb’s Heart—Flounders—Corned Beef—Cannelon of Beef | [124] |
| CHAPTER XX. | |
Preparing a Chicken—Giblets—Spoilt Bread | [130] |
| CHAPTER XXI. | |
To make a Fowl Tender as Spring Chicken | [136] |
| CHAPTER XXII. | |
Dollars and Cents | [138] |
| CHAPTER XXIII. | |
Chiefly Social—Mrs. Framley’s Opinions | [145] |
| CHAPTER XXIV. | |
A very Plain Pudding—How to cook Odds and Ends—Bills of Fare for a Week | [149] |
| CHAPTER XXV. | |
Marta’s Noodles—Braised Beef—How to adapt one’s Materials—Polka Pudding and Sauce | [154] |
| CHAPTER XXVI. | |
Fried Potatoes—Polka Sauce—Clearing Gravy of Fat—A Variety of Cakes from One Recipe | [161] |
| CHAPTER XXVII. | |
Candied Lemon-Peel—To whip Cream Solid—Iced Cream Coffee—Madeleine Cake—Potato Balls | [166] |
| CHAPTER XXVIII. | |
Fricasseed Chicken—Lemon Honey—French Icing to keep | [172] |
| CHAPTER XXIX. | |
Boiled Custard—Frozen Bananas—Uses of French Icing—Scalloped Potatoes—Hollandaise Sauce—Roast Oysters—Unexpected Visitors | [176] |
| CHAPTER XXX. | |
Hominy Muffins—Fish Balls—Royal Custard—“Consommé à la Royale”—Fricassee Sweetbreads—Vanilla Soufflé | [189] |
| CHAPTER XXXI. | |
A Surprise—A Boiled Dinner—Dresden Patties—Oysters and Brown Butter—“Old English” Fritters | [196] |
| CHAPTER XXXII. | |
Veal and Ham Pie—Beefsteak Pudding—Trifle | [205] |
| CHAPTER XXXIII. | |
Town versus Country—The Servant Question | [214] |
| CHAPTER XXXIV. | |
Ox-Tail Soup—Grisini—Stewed Lamb and Peas—Méringues with Cream | [219] |
| CHAPTER XXXV. | |
Macaroons—Jumbles—Genoese Tablettes—Irish Stew | [225] |
| CHAPTER XXXVI. | |
To boil and prepare Lobsters—Sandwiches—Clearing Soup—Omelet Soufflé | [234] |
| CHAPTER XXXVII. | |
Gâteau de Riz—French Rice Cake—Preparing Calf’s Head—Mock-Turtle Soup—More Noodles—Pigeon Pie | [241] |
| CHAPTER XXXVIII. | |
One More Use for Soup Meat—Stewed Calf’s Tongue—Brains, au Beurre Noir (Brown Butter)—Calf’s Head—Hollandaise Sauce—Calf’s Head en Tortue | [248] |
| CHAPTER XXXIX. | |
Ideas and Suggestions on several Subjects | [252] |
| CHAPTER XL. | |
English Muffins and Crumpets—Pickling and curing—Roast Beef-Heart—Soused Mackerel | [259] |
| CHAPTER XLI. | |
The Baby—Conclusion | [269] |
TEN DOLLARS ENOUGH.
CHAPTER I.
MR. AND MRS. BISHOP TRY THE EXPERIMENT.
“Beef steak, cod steak, mutton chop, and hash!”
This bill of fare, glibly rattled off by a neat waitress, promised a very satisfying breakfast, supplemented as it was by abundant cream-of-tartar biscuit and potatoes. Yet Mrs. Bishop thought this morning, as she had done for three hundred out of the three hundred and sixty-five mornings she had heard it, she would gladly have exchanged all for a cup of really fine coffee, a fresh egg, and some good home-made bread and butter. Needless to say, Mr. and Mrs. Bishop were boarding, and doing so at a very good house, for the money they were able to pay,—$20 per week for the two. Yet to this couple, reared with luxury and refinement, the very abundance was nauseating.
“You ate no breakfast again, Puss. What am I to do with you?”
“Oh, I shall do very well. I am sure one has nothing to complain of, and if Mrs. Jones were to cater to our tastes she would not satisfy her other boarders.”
“Yes, there is a coarse substantial abundance about it, that always strikes me with wonder as to how it is done for the money”—
“And yet, Harry, wouldn’t you enjoy a nice little breakfast for our two selves? Oh, if we could only keep house!”
“My darling, I wish to keep house just as much as you do, but with my income such housekeeping would be very different from what you think. You would have to limit the clean table-cloths and napkins, and stint yourself in everything, to make both ends meet.”
“I wish I could convince you, Harry, that it need not be so. You don’t know what a good manager I should be.”
“Dear little woman, I couldn’t have you make a drudge of yourself, and believe me, you don’t realize the difference between practice and theory. I know several men who have good, self-denying wives, and just my income, but I could not look forward to the narrowness of such houses as theirs, nor wish to see you in one. While we are boarding we can’t pretend to have a home; there is no temptation to ask a friend to a meal, no shame if one comes and it isn’t good.”
Mrs. Bishop turned a smiling face on her husband.
“That is the secret, Harry. You are afraid of being ashamed of my housekeeping. Shall I promise you that you shall never dread to bring a friend home for fear of a soiled table-cloth, and a too economical dinner? I assure you I haven’t been to cooking-schools for nothing.”
“You dear enthusiast! If it were not for your own sake I’d let you try.”
Mrs. Bishop executed a little dance of joy.
“Oh, Harry, you can’t go back on that, you mustn’t! Do let us go through this winter in our own house.”
Mr. Bishop only said, taking out his watch—
“By Jove! I have only time to catch the car. Goodbye, dear.” Pressing a hearty kiss on her soft cheek, he rushed down the stairs and out of the house.
There was quite a little romance about this young couple, which I will relate here, that those who may follow the young wife’s trials and triumphs may understand some that she had to fear. Harry Bishop was the son of a prosperous merchant, who, as is the fashion in this America of ours, lived almost like a prince on the profits of his business, but, as his family was large, and his wife ambitious and extravagant, it was not very certain that he would be able to provide a fortune for each of his children. For this reason he and Mrs. Bishop were anxious that those children should marry money.
When Harry declared his intention of marrying, instead of the rich Miss Vanderpool his mother had looked out for him, pretty, penniless Molly Marsh, the anger and disappointment at home had been very great, and although it is not the fashion in this country to cast off the sons and daughters who make rash marriages, they did the next thing to it,—they disapproved so strongly that Molly rarely visited the grand home Harry had given up to marry her, and Harry’s father in his anger had said:
“Do you remember, sir, that your paltry salary wouldn’t pay the rent of a house in a decent location? and you propose to keep a wife on it! One thing you may be sure, ‘as you make your bed so you must lie,’ and when you have a mass of unpaid bills, you mustn’t look to me to pay ’em.”
“I never will, sir. I am sorry for Molly’s sake you take it like this, but I hope in time you will see that I am right to choose happiness instead of riches.”
And then Harry’s mother had pictured the sordid home kept on $100 a month, and derisively asked if he supposed he would be happy after the honeymoon was over, eating common coarse food in a shabby little dining-room.
“The idea of it! You are the last person, Harry, to content yourself in that way. Why, you criticise even my cook; how will you do with no cook at all?”
“I shouldn’t criticise, dear mother, if you did the cooking.”
They had been married a year now, and Molly and Harry paid rare visits to his father’s house, and she, poor young wife, was made to feel how much her husband had sacrificed for her, and she knew, good as Harry was, he would be rather exacting in his own home; that, though for love of her he might not express himself, small deficiencies would jar on him, and that in beginning to keep house she would be undertaking a great deal.
“But that will be my share. If by devoting time to my housekeeping, I can make Harry’s money go half as far again as it would otherwise do, I shall do as much as if I earned half as much as he.”
And so during that year of boarding and leisure, Molly had attended cooking-classes, with a married friend, and had gone home with her and they had practiced together. She had read, too, everything she could find about housekeeping, and Harry laughed, sometimes, till the tears ran down his cheeks at what he called her “paper housekeeping.”
Yet her pictures of that ideal home they were to have were very alluring to him too, and this particular morning, when their boarding-house life had lasted just one year, her words had taken deeper hold than ever before. That evening he returned with a very mysterious look on his face.
“What is the matter, Harry?” asked Molly, merrily. “What plot are you brewing?”
“How would you like to pass a winter in the country?”
“I shouldn’t mind. Why do you ask?”
“Because we can put your longed-for experiment to the test. John Winfield is going to take his wife to Europe on the first of September, and wants to let his cottage furnished for the bare rent he pays: $20 per month.”
“Oh, Harry! and we will take it? It is such a cozy little place.”
“Yes, dear, I think we may venture on this experiment. If it happens that we tire of housekeeping in a few months, we shall not be burdened with furniture that we don’t want, and if you are as happy as you think, we can take a little house and furnish it.”
Mrs. Bishop looked the joy she felt, and all that evening they were discussing plans and prospects.
Many of my readers will wonder, perhaps, why this young couple looked upon beginning housekeeping on Harry’s income as such a tremendous experiment, when so many live and bring up families on much less. But there was no disguising the fact that Harry’s bringing-up in his father’s luxurious house had made him fastidious, and he shrank from the too frugal table that he associated with such means, and, even more, the necessity of foregoing in his own house the refinement he had been accustomed to. This lack being in the house of another person irked him less.
Molly’s dread was mixed with a trembling desire to show her husband what sort of a wife he had married.
“I feel just a doll while boarding, with nothing to think of but my clothes. You don’t know whether I am fit to be a helpmeet or not,” she had often said, and he had replied, “My darling, I take it all on faith; you are too good for me, even if you could not sew on a button.”
But Molly’s trembling did not come from fear of facing life in a cottage. She knew herself, but she did think that Harry might grow to repent the step. She feared also the criticism of his mother, ever watchful for a trip on her part.
Ah! what agony it would be to her, if her husband should ever regret the sacrifice he had made! But from such thoughts as these, that kept her awake far into the night while Harry slept soundly at her side, she would turn to a vision of herself as a triumphant little matron.
“I cannot fail! My time and ingenuity will certainly supply the deficiency of money.”
Molly had kept house for an invalid mother, who, for economy’s sake, had lived in a small French town, and after her mother’s death she had found herself forced to earn her living as governess, for her mother’s income died with her.
Thus, although she had often told Harry she could keep house, he had smiled, pinched her cheek, and told her she did not realize the difference between keeping house in France and doing so in America, with a newly imported Bridget for aide de cuisine, and as Molly did not like to boast, she had to let him keep his own opinion. But oh, how she longed to show him what unknown resources lay within her! And now the chance was hers.
After the first joyful hour, she behaved very soberly. She would take as a matter of course all Harry’s misgivings as to the commissariat department, for I am sorry to say Harry Bishop, although a Harvard graduate, and a fairly intellectual young man, did think a great deal of the enjoyment of life consisted in a good table, by which he meant not good food only, but good cooking and dainty service, and how they were to have this on $100 per month he could not see, unless his income were all spent for servants and food. When he told this to Molly she said:
“No, I propose that we keep house, and spend exactly what we do for this one room and our board; that is, $80 per month. It must be divided in this way: $20 for rent (we must never go beyond that), $12 for servant, and $10 a week for housekeeping; that is, $77 a month. The three remaining dollars, with the four or five we now spend for car fare, will buy your commutation ticket.”
“$10 a week for housekeeping! I am afraid you’ll find that will make a poor show, little wife,” he said caressingly. “I shall think we are happy and fortunate, if the $20 we now allow for our clothes and outside expenses will cover the deficit at the end of the month.”
“You’ll see $10 is enough.”
He laughed good-humoredly.
“I guess, Pussy, we shall both see things grow ‘small by degrees and beautifully less,’ toward the end of each month.”
“We’ll hope not,” said Molly meekly, for now that she hoped her hour of trial and triumph was coming, she could afford to let him anticipate evil.
CHAPTER II.
AT HOME.
On the 1st of September our young couple took possession of their new house.
It was a small house, or rather cottage, in the fashionable New Jersey town of Greenfield, and contained a dining-room, sitting-room and kitchen on the first floor, and four rooms above arranged as bed-room, guest-room, servants’ room and sewing-room. It was as slightly built as a house could be, probably, yet in better taste than most houses of its class, and Mrs. Winfield’s taste in furnishing was excellent, so that even Harry’s fastidious eye was satisfied.
As for Molly, she spent her first hour in the house promenading from room to room, such a luxurious idea of freedom and space did that small house give her.
“Think, Harry! We can actually change rooms when we like.”
“Poor little Molly, I did not know that you had hated boarding so, or I should not have refused to try this experiment long ago. I did it for your sake.”
“Never mind, we’ll have such a good time now, that we won’t think of anything else.”
“What time is your Gretchen to arrive?”
“Not Gretchen, but Marta. She came an hour ago, while you were seeing to the baggage, and is busy down stairs, where I must go to her if we are to have any lunch, while you put your books in order.”
“Oh, lunch! Never mind lunch to-day, bread and cheese will do”—
“Oh, no!” said Molly, shaking her head and laughing, “I’ve brought you from the land of abundance; I must take care that you are not made to suffer the first day.”
Marta, Molly’s servant, was a newly arrived German girl whom she had had the courage to take from Castle Garden.
“She will be as green as grass, Molly,” Harry had said.
“Yes, I know, but at least it is better she should know nothing than know how to do things badly; it is easier to teach than to unteach.”
“All right, my dear, we will go to Castle Garden, then, and interview a new arrival from Germany.”
They did so, and found a thick, short, strong, but stupid-looking girl was the only one whom it seemed possible to take into the house. Molly was a little crestfallen, so far did Marta seem from what she had hoped to meet with. Yet she asked only $10 per month.
“That is $2.00 to the good,” thought Molly, “and by promising her $12 when she can do my work as I wish, she will have something to work for. I believe that is where people make a mistake in our country. The incompetent girls, if they have only impudence enough to ask it, get as good wages as the competent.”
Marta had arrived with two very large trunks, each of them no doubt the Thuringian equivalent for a Saratoga, at which excess of baggage Molly had marveled. Molly had taken her to her room, and told her to go down when ready and begin taking things out of the kitchen closets. This she had heard her doing when Harry had asked when she was to arrive.
Molly found Marta attired in what seemed a green baize skirt, very short; worked zephyr slippers with thick soles, quite new and very large, over gray knitted worsted stockings, also apparently new. Over the skirt she wore a clean cotton camisole or sacque. Evidently Marta was dressed with strict attention to her début in a new place, and was satisfied that her slippers were as attractive as they were no doubt comfortable.
Molly wanted to know exactly what was in the kitchen closets, so that she might see what she had to work with, therefore she had set Marta to clean them out, although Mrs. Winfield had left everything in such excellent order that it was not absolutely necessary this first day.
It was eleven o’clock, and Molly, although she had laughed at Harry’s anxiety to eat bread and cheese, had decided that it would be best to have a luncheon that would be as little trouble as possible, yet one that should not seem at all a makeshift, so sensitive was she to Harry’s good-natured criticism.
She ordered in the morning what she thought might be a month’s supplies of groceries, and for the day’s use:
| 2 heads of lettuce, | $ .06 |
| 1 melon, | .10 |
| 2 quarts peaches, | .12 |
| 1 can of boned chicken, | .50 |
| Forequarter of lamb, 8 pounds, | 1.12 |
| 2 pounds of butter, | .50 |
| 2 dozen eggs, | .50 |
| Total, | $2.90 |
Milk had been left at the house by Mrs. Winfield’s man, and ice also, and bread by the baker.
She intended to have for lunch to-day chicken salad, omelette and drop biscuit and coffee, all of which could, she knew, be prepared in three quarters of an hour, so she helped Marta dust and replace the utensils in their places, and made notes of what was lacking for her use, although, as economy was her object, she decided to do with as little addition to what was in the house as possible.
She called Marta’s attention as they replaced each article, telling her its English name, and bidding her remember its place and keep it there.
Marta spoke no English, but Molly spoke fair German, and she managed to make her understand. As the clock struck twelve, Molly took her into the dining-room to lay the luncheon cloth; she showed her how it must be done, that the fold must be just in the centre, the salt-cellars always neat and smooth, a soiled knife never put on, and as she went through these necessary instructions, the thought crossed her mind, how frivolous and useless these little niceties must seem to a girl to whom perhaps even a table-cloth had hitherto been an unknown luxury. What wonder that it was in these small things so difficult to train one?
When the table was ready, Molly ran into the little garden, and gathered a few red geranium flowers and their leaves, and arranged them in a glass for the centre of the table.
“This is one of the charms of the country; even in a tiny garden like this, one can always have a spray of flowers for the table,” thought Molly.
It was now a quarter past twelve, and one thing that Marta must be taught was punctuality. At one o’clock lunch was to be, and as Molly would prepare it to-day, it should not be a minute behind.
“Come, Marta, I want to show you how to make biscuit; but first we must look to the fire.”
Molly had made it herself before Marta arrived, and knew it was good and the oven hot, but she wanted to impress on her handmaiden the necessity of assuring herself that it was good, before beginning to cook.
“I set the damper this way, so that the oven would heat as soon as the fire is burning well, Marta. You see it is hot, and also,” taking off the stove lid, “that there is fire enough to last; always make sure of that, so that you will not find yourself with a poor fire in the middle of cooking.”
This Molly managed to convey by words and actions, and Marta nodded comprehension.
“Now then, as we are such a small family, I take a pint of flour only, and a scant dessert-spoonful of butter, and rub it in the flour this way, do you see? until it is just like sand. Now I add a salt-spoonful of salt, two tea-spoonfuls of sugar, and a small tea-spoonful of baking-powder; be very careful of the proportions, for it is just by doing this that you are sure never to have days when things turn out wrong; they cannot do that, if you are exact and right.
“Now mix all thoroughly, and you see I take this scant half pint of milk; I make a hole in the flour and pour it partly in, stirring as I do it, and if I see it needs more in order to keep it the stiffest kind of batter or the softest kind of dough, I add it; it takes all the half pint, you see, but with flour you can’t be quite sure of the exact quantity, and a tea-spoonful too much would make it too thin. Now, you see, it is so very thick I can hardly stir it, yet it is far from being stiff enough to knead. Butter that tin pan and give it to me.”
Marta understood the order, but began slowly to spread butter from the end of a knife. Molly took a bit of white paper, and taking the pan from her quickly, for the biscuit had now to be got into the oven as soon as possible, she rubbed a bit of butter over it.
“Too many cooks spoil the broth, Marta. If I had been working quite alone I should have greased my pan before beginning; it is very bad management to leave it.” As she spoke she was taking the paste on the end of her spoon, and dropping it in little oblong mounds on the pan, about two inches apart. In another minute they were in the oven, which was very hot.
“My mother used to pride herself on these biscuits, and gave herself fifteen minutes to make and bake them. Now for the salad.”
Molly quickly opened the can of chicken she had bought, and cut the contents in half; one portion she turned out on a dish, and set the other aside to go into the ice-box. Then she set Marta to open olives and salad oil, while she herself cut the chicken into small pieces, removing every bit of skin that was on it. When the olives were open, she took a small, sharp, knife and calling Marta’s attention to an olive, she cut into it till the edge of the knife touched the stone, and then began to peel that stone, as it were, being careful not to break the peel, and keeping close to the stone. When the knife had passed all around, the stone was in her left thumb and finger, the peel or stoned olive in her right. The stone was bare except at the ends, and the olive peel curled back into its old form, minus those ends.
“Now, Marta, see if you can stone six olives as I did that. Never mind if you break the first.”
Molly saw Marta start right, then she poured out a table-spoonful of oil and a half one of vinegar, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a scant half one of pepper. These she mixed thoroughly and poured over the chicken, taking care that it should go well through it. Then she looked into the oven. The biscuits had been in five minutes; they had puffed up and were nearly done.
When first the groceries had come, Molly, mindful of her mayonnaise, had put an egg, bowl, and spoon in the ice-box, and, had the day been hot, she would have put the oil there too. She went for them now, and knew that the minute it took her to get them had sufficed to give the biscuit just the tint she wanted, a pale golden brown; she took them out and set them in the warming-closet of the range, and returned to her salad. She wanted Marta to wash the lettuce, but having set her to stone olives was careful not to take her from that task.
“My bad management,” she thought. “I ought to have set her to wash the lettuce, and leave it drying in a cloth while she did the olives.”
Marta had managed to cut three or four olives into small pieces, but had evidently not seized the idea. Molly stoned another one for her, and then Marta once more began.
“Now, Marta, I want you to stone those and then to wash the lettuce, putting each leaf on a clean cloth as you do it. I am going to make a mayonnaise sauce, which I must show you another day.”
She broke the egg, putting the white into a cup, the yolk into her ice-cold bowl, and began to stir it. This she did for a few seconds, and then added a few drops of oil, stirred just long enough for it to disappear in the yolk, then added a very little more, and so on, stirring steadily, waiting till the last oil was blended before adding more. When it had once assumed the pale opaque yellow that told her the mayonnaise had “come,” she added oil in rather larger quantities. Five minutes after this point the mayonnaise was as thick as butter in warm weather; a little more oil and it could no longer be stirred, for it clung to the spoon.
“Now, Marta, you see when it gets like this I add a few drops of vinegar, which changes the color,—whitens it,—but stirring a few seconds blends the vinegar, and it now is like very thick cream. I can go on adding oil now till it is very thick again.”
When it had again reached the unmanageable point Molly put to it, gradually, a half dessert-spoonful of vinegar (which she had ordered to be very strong), a salt-spoonful of salt, and a very little white pepper; she then tasted it and found it would stand a few drops more vinegar for Harry’s taste, as he liked it rather sharp.
Marta had finished the olives fairly well, and had the lettuce drying on the cloth.
“Grind two table-spoonfuls of coffee, Marta. Wait, I’ll tighten the screw of the mill, while you put that French coffee-pot on the back of the stove to get warm.”
Molly placed the dry end of the cloth over the lettuce leaves and patted them, resolving that a salad-basket must be an immediate purchase. She took the leaves, now free from water, and laid them over the salad-dish, reserving the whitest for the border; then she placed the chicken in the centre, mixing with it the pieces of olive Marta had broken in her first attempts, and smoothing it with a knife
The mayonnaise would have been all the better if it could have stood in the ice-box half an hour; and, another time, she would have it made early on the day it was wanted; however, it was thick enough to mask the chicken, only less would have answered the purpose had it been ice cold. She spread it with a knife evenly, then laid the stoned olives around at intervals—and the salad was ready.
The coffee being ground, she gave the salad to Marta to take to the ice-box for the twenty minutes that would elapse before lunch-time, while she broke three eggs and separated them, and when Marta returned gave her the whites to beat to a high froth. While she was doing that, Molly got the frying-pan, put a table-spoonful of butter in it, and set both to get hot; then she poured boiling water through the coffee-pot (in case it might not have been used lately), threw it out, and put two full table-spoonfuls of coffee (ground much finer than the grocer does it, being, in fact, about like coarse corn meal) into the fine strainer, replaced the coarse one over it, and then took a tin pint measure, filled it with boiling water, and poured half into the coffee-pot; the other half she set on the stove to keep at boiling-point, while the first dripped through; then she put half a pint of milk to boil, and, seeing the butter was melted, she drew back the frying-pan that it might not burn till the omelette was ready.
Marta had not yet reached the point of snow with the whites of eggs, and Molly took them from her to finish herself.
“Now, Marta, put that little fringed napkin on the dish, and with a fork take up those biscuits.”
She watched her while she performed her task, dropping two or three on the floor, of course, but that did not ruffle Molly’s good temper, for she knew the girl could not have been accustomed to doing things daintily,—that if she followed her instinct, it would no doubt be to tumble them all out pell-mell together.
“Now take those to the table, set them on the mat I showed you, and come back at once.”
The eggs were now ready, and as the omelette was to be the very last thing cooked, she poured the rest of the water on the coffee, told Marta to get the waiter ready, and then pour the boiling milk into the pitcher and set it on it.
“Now, Marta, take the chicken salad into the dining-room, and at the same time take the melon from the ice-box and bring it here as you come back.”
The coffee had now all dripped through; she took a cup and poured it full of coffee, and then poured it back to run through again,—then she directed Marta to cut the melon in half, remove the seeds, and lay the halves in a dish with a piece of ice in each half. Knowing Marta would not understand cracking ice, Molly had put some ready, when she had gone for the bowl and egg for mayonnaise.
“Now, Marta, I will run up stairs and get ready for lunch; while I am gone take the melon into the dining-room and put it on the table at the side opposite the biscuit. Remember, at luncheon everything may go on the table at once. The butter is ready on a dish in the ice-box; place that, and by that time I will be down.”
Molly had worn a homespun walking-dress, and it had been the custom of herself and friend, Mrs. Welles, to try and emulate the neatness of the teacher at the cooking-school they had attended, who dressed handsomely, wore no apron, and left her class spotless. They had attained to great neatness, but Molly found herself more comfortable in a large apron. She did not yet remove it, but put on a clean collar, arranged a stray curl, and washed her face and hands, then ran down to finish her omelette. She put the frying-pan back to a hot place, stirred the yolks of eggs with a good pinch of salt and a little pepper, and mixed them gently with the whites, and poured both into the pan, which she turned about that the mixture might run into every part; and when it was “set” underneath, she lifted one side, tilted the pan and allowed the uncooked custard to run into its place; this she kept on doing, always turning the cooked part toward the centre, until in three minutes it was a light custard-like mass; then, with a cake-turner, she folded one side over and slipped the doubled omelette on to a hot dish, where it lay, a delicate golden-brown mound.
“Now, Marta, take in the coffee and milk.”
She heard Harry coming down stairs, and looking at the clock saw it was three minutes past one.
“Going up to dress did that,” she thought, “but it is not so bad, yet I am sorry Marta has the bad example.”
“Odors of Araby the blest!” quoted Harry, as Molly, divested of her apron, the omelette in hand, followed him into the dining-room. “I smell coffee!—real aromatic coffee!”
He stood and surveyed the pretty lunch table, looked at the Delmonico-like salad, the Frenchy omelette, and then at Molly.
“Humph, is this all cooking-school, or is it part caterer,—if there is such a being in Greenfield?”
“It is part cooking-school, and a tiny bit Molly,” said the young wife. “No, indeed, I have no acquaintance with caterers.”
“This omelette should not palpitate its excellence away; shall I help you, dear?”
“No; I devote myself to salad”—then to Marta, who was waiting, uncertain what to do:
“Marta, go into the kitchen and wash up, in quite hot water, the soiled pans and dishes.”
“Molly, this omelette is perfect; you have put forth your strength, indeed; but, my dear little girl, I am not going to have you spend all your time in the kitchen.”
“I don’t mean to, but I can give a couple of hours each day, and it will do me good.”
“But this luncheon is quite elaborate. Oh, I’ve heard of chicken salad and its intricacy, before now.”
Molly smiled; she had known it too. “I will take some of it if you please.”
“Ah, Molly, I believe it’s worth while to give up boarding and to live on cold meat, to have such coffee as this, and such biscuit!”
“I think it is, although I don’t intend to live on cold meat; I don’t like it.”
“But I suppose we must do a good deal of that, or eat quantities of hash, for we can’t afford to throw our cold meat away.”
“Ah, Harry, what would be the good of my devotion to cooking-schools if I couldn’t do better than that?”
“If you learned to make chicken salad there, I swear by them forever.”
“You’ll forswear your ridicule, I hope.”
“I will, indeed, if only for the sake of this salad; there’s a tang, a something about it, that outdoes my previous conception of the dish. Now, Molly, eliminate yourself from the cooking-schools, and tell me which was the ‘tiny bit of Molly.’”
“Ah, Molly was the ‘something’ in the salad—and also what made it a very easy instead of a difficult dish to prepare. You have eaten, before, salad made of boiled or roast chicken. I made this of canned chicken, which saves all trouble of preparing, and is besides of far better flavor, for the jelly and all the goodness is sealed up in the can, instead of escaping into the water. I don’t like boughten canned things, usually, but the chicken is a success.”
“The salad was, at any rate. Now I’m going to smoke; shall we survey our domain?”
“Yes, I’ll be out in one minute, when I have shown Marta how to clear away.”
Harry left the room and Marta answered the bell.
“Now, Marta, bring your tray, set it on that table and put these things on it.”
Molly, as she spoke, smoothed over the salt-cellars with a spoon, then put them away; also the napkins, while Marta removed the dishes, etc.
“Now, Marta, never take off the cloth to shake it, but do as you see me do now.”
Molly had taken a folded napkin, and brushed the crumbs lightly into the crumb-pan.
“At dinner do this after the meat is removed. Now take the cloth by this centre fold, lift it from the table, lay it back double, and then fold again in the old creases, till it is just as it left the laundress. At dinner you shall do it yourself under my direction.”
Molly then went out to join Harry in the little garden. She had her trunks to unpack, and contents to arrange in the bureau drawers, but she meant to devote half an hour to her husband, on this first day of their home life.
“Well, Molly, my dear, I begin to think I like housekeeping.”
“I knew you would, Harry, but remember we have only just begun, and hitches will come sometimes, but even at the worst that need be, with moderate care, I think you would not go back to our one room again, and the routine meals.”
“No; I begin to feel some of the aspirations of proprietorship, and to wish this little place were mine.”
“I am so glad, Harry, because if you go on thinking so, in spring we can get a similar place of our own.”
When they had walked and talked till Harry said he was going in to write letters, Molly returned to the house, and found Marta in grand confusion washing glasses, silver, and greasy dishes all together.
“Oh, Marta! I must show you a better way than that. Take those things out of the dish-pan. Get clean hot water and a little soap, so. Now take glasses first; roll them round and put them in this empty dish-pan. Now the silver. Put the greasy dishes in, and leave them while you pour nearly boiling water over the silver and glass. Now bring the waiter and wipe each article as it comes out of that hot water. You see it takes only a minute; being hot they hardly dampen the cloth.
“Now set those dry things on a tray, and wash the greasy dishes, using more soap if the water does not lather; slip each dish into this hot water, and wipe them out of it directly; don’t drain them, and then wipe them half cold.”
When she had thus straightened Marta out, and set her to make up the fire and sweep the kitchen, she went up to her unpacking and other arrangements.
CHAPTER III.
MOLLY’S FIRST BILL OF FARE.
Lamb and Mint Sauce.
Browned Potatoes. Boiled Cabbage.
Italian Macaroni. Tomato Salad.
Peaches and Cream.
Mrs. Winfield had given Molly some useful information about her neighbors, and one item was that she could get cream from one, and salad and fresh vegetables from another. She had resolved to have a very simple dinner for to-day, although she knew it would be more expensive than a better-seeming one, where she could make good cooking count for half the money.
She had ordered, on her way to the house, a fore-quarter of lamb weighing eight pounds, and at four o’clock she went down to see to the fire. Before going up-stairs she had put on coals and closed all dampers; now she showed Marta how to rake it, and how to arrange the dampers so that the fire would draw, and the oven get hot; then she left the kitchen, telling Marta, as she had everything tidy down-stairs, she could go to her room and put some of her belongings in place.
Molly was now feeling glad of rest, for her unpacking and unwonted standing had tired her, and, thinking she might indulge herself, she took a book and lay down on the sofa. Half an hour she lay thus, enjoying the repose and her book far more than when she had had unlimited opportunity for both.
“Ha, ha! what magic is this? Our new housekeeper finds time on ‘moving day’ to lie down and improve her mind,” cried Harry, as he came into the room and sat down by her side.
“I could have found plenty to do, although coming into a ready-furnished house, left in such perfect order as this was, really leaves one little, the first day, but to shake down into place and plan what one can do to-morrow. I have unpacked, put our own knick-knacks about up-stairs, and then I felt tired enough to lie down, and thought it wise to do so before I was over-tired.”
“Of course it was. I have been looking about me out-of-doors, ordered a paper to be sent, and priced a brood of chickens.”
“Oh, no, no, not yet, Harry! we’ll see about chickens when we are settled, unless, indeed, you want them badly.”
“I? No, indeed! I thought of you.”
“Then I would rather wait. I see some cabbages down at the end of the garden. I have longed to taste nice cabbage for months.”
“You vulgar little person!”
“You won’t say so when you eat it.”
“No, but I shan’t eat it, my dear. I’ve too much respect for my digestion.”
“What a pity!”
Notwithstanding Harry’s determination, Molly went for a cabbage, and told Marta to put it in water. Then Molly took the fore-quarter of lamb, and with a sharp knife she made a deep incision, just where the neck ends and the shoulder begins, carrying the knife round nearly in a circle, always cutting as deeply as possible until the shoulder was free from the quarter. She had now before her the breast and rack, or ribs, the scrag, and the shoulder,—a nice, neat joint. All she had allowed the butcher to do to the quarter was to joint the chops and crack the breast across in the usual way, but not to touch the shoulder.
Molly had seen this process of removing the shoulder so often in Europe (where it is a very choice joint), that she had felt sure she could manage it. She knew that the great thing was to have the shoulder as thick as possible, therefore the knife must cut to the rib bones, and yet that the circle traced by the knife should go only within three inches of the edge on the rib side or back, and follow the line of the breast on the front, so that there remained five or six rib chops with the fat upon them, and several from under the shoulder up to the scrag, which would be excellent “French chops,” ready trimmed,—she would only have to scrape the bone.
To-day, however, she only separated the breast and cut off three rib chops, and trimmed them ready for breakfast, then put them away with the meat, leaving the shoulder out for dinner. It weighed about three and a half pounds, and would take, being lamb, which must be so well done, an hour and a quarter to cook. She set Marta to peel half a dozen potatoes of medium size, while she set the shoulder on a wire stand in a dripping-pan, then shook a little flour over it and rubbed a little salt on the skin. Molly had profited too well by her cooking-school lessons to think of putting salt on the flesh of meat before cooking, when it would draw out the gravy. When the potatoes were peeled and washed, she put them in the dripping-pan under the meat, and for fear enough fat should not drop from the joint to prevent the potatoes from becoming hard and dry before they browned, she laid the scraps of fat she had cut from the breakfast chops upon them. It was both young and fat lamb,—had it not been, Molly would not have risked the strong taste of lamb that is nearly mutton, on potatoes, nor the hard, whitish dryness of those cooked under lean meat.
The potatoes were well sprinkled with salt and the pan set in the oven. Molly had only intended having the lamb, and cut-up peaches and cream for dessert, yet, seeing she had time, for it was just a quarter to five now, and only the cloth for Marta to lay, and the cabbage to cook, she thought she would give Harry some of his beloved macaroni as a course. She therefore broke a few pipes of macaroni into pieces about six inches long, taking a dozen of them, and set them on to boil in water and a little salt till tender. While this was in process, she had sent Marta for some tomatoes from the vine, and when they came, showed her how to scald them, and herself squeezed the pulp from two large ones through a strainer, and set it in a small thick saucepan with a table-spoonful of butter, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a little pepper, and put it on the stove where it would slowly cook.
Marta had scalded half a dozen tomatoes and dropped them, as she skinned them, on some cracked ice. Molly took them when they were cold and firm, and with a sharp knife cut them into slices and set them in the ice-box.
“Now, Marta, come with me to set the dinner-table. I will show you, to-night, and expect you to remember afterwards. You first remove the cover and fold it, but leave on this white baize.”
Molly watched to see if the girl had remembered her instructions at lunch, but found she had not retained one idea.
“No, Marta, the middle fold, lengthwise, and exactly in the centre; now the flowers, now a plate to each person, the napkin to the left with a piece of bread in it, a large and a small knife, two forks and a spoon to each person; above these the glasses and a butter-plate.[1] Now put this carving-napkin in front of Mr. Bishop, lay the large table-mat there, and when you bring in the meat set the dish upon it. Now count the dishes and set a mat for each, one salt-cellar and pepper-caster at each right-hand corner, two table-spoons at the same place. Now that is all, and you can come and peel peaches.”
Molly heard the meat in the oven sputtering and hissing, and found it browning nicely. She basted it, turning the potatoes over, and closed the oven. It was twenty minutes past five.
“Marta, I want you to pay attention to everything I do, because the next time we have this dinner I shall expect you to cook it alone, and when you have learnt to roast one piece of meat properly, you will be able to roast any other. Remember the rules,—your oven must be quite hot when the meat goes in; if, after a while, you find danger of its burning, cool it, but meat can’t get brown too quickly to retain the juices. You must put no water in the pan, for that steams it. If your meat is so very lean that it will be dry, it is of such poor quality that you should not try to roast it (and that sort of meat you will not have to cook for me), or it is a part unsuitable for roasting, and should be cooked some other way. Baste often, and when meat is half done,—that is, brown and crisp on top,—turn it over, as I shall do that lamb in a few minutes. Above all things, meat must be brown if roasted.”
Marta had peeled the eight peaches Molly had given her, and the latter now told her to three parts fill a gallon saucepan with water from the kettle, which she had taken care to see full when she set the oven to heat, and which was now boiling.
“Put it in the hottest spot, Marta; we want it to boil quickly. Now that cabbage: it is only a small head, so you can cut it in four, and remove the outer leaves,—also cut away the core; wash it thoroughly in two waters; now hold the colander in your left hand, and as you wash the cabbage through the second water lay it in it; then pour the water out of the pan and set the colander in it, so that all water may run off the cabbage; the thing we want is to check the boiling water as little as possible, which the cabbage, filled with cold water, would do. Now I am going to turn the meat over, so that the under side will brown, while you pour the water off that macaroni; it is just tender but not breaking.”
The lamb was brown and crisp on the top when Molly turned the under side up, so that it might become equally so. Marta brought the macaroni back to the stove, and Molly poured over it the tomato juice she had put to reduce. There was enough to moisten the macaroni and yet leave a little in the saucepan. She put it at the back of the stove, where it would keep about boiling-point, but not burn.
“Now the cabbage, Marta. You see this water is boiling very fast; put it in gently, so that if there is too much in the saucepan you may dip some out before it overflows,—no, it all goes in, and the water covers it well; now put in one table-spoonful of salt and one scant salt-spoonful of baking soda. Remember, Marta, cabbage must never be allowed to remain long in hot water before it boils up; it must boil very fast; for that reason it must always be in the hottest part of the stove, and there must be abundance of water and the saucepan always large. As soon as it comes back to the boiling-point, take off the cover, and leave it off all the while, and push the cabbage down under the water from time to time. The whole secret of boiling cabbage without filling the house with a bad odor and sending to table a vulgar, yellow, wilted vegetable, full of dyspepsia, is to remember—rapid boiling, plenty of water, plenty of room, and the cover off.”
She took off the stove-lid as she spoke, and brightened the top of the fire, and in another minute the cabbage was “galloping.”
“Twenty-five minutes from now it will be done. Now, Marta, I want you to run to that white house across the lot, and ask for half a pint of cream.”
The peaches were cut up, and Molly put them in a bowl and set it on the ice. When she came back she grated a small piece of cheese, about as big as her thumb, and shook it into the macaroni, shaking the saucepan about, so that it would mix without breaking the pipes, and set it back to keep hot.
There was nothing to be done now till the cabbage was cooked.
Suddenly Molly remembered something she had forgotten, and stopped short, very much vexed.
“I have no cake to eat with the peaches, and Harry is so fond of cake! I’ve just time to make a ‘fifteen minutes’ cake,’ and I will. No, I wont! it will make getting dinner on time a scramble; I shall go in flushed and heated, and Harry will think I am killing myself, and Marta will think she may scramble ever after. We will do without cake.”
Marta returned with the cream, which was put in the ice-box, and she was then set at chopping the leaves of some mint for mint sauce. Molly had found, on walking around Greenfield the first day they visited the house, a quantity of mint growing near, and had pulled a few roots and replanted them in the garden. When it was chopped quite fine, she took one table-spoonful, an equal quantity of sugar, and as the vinegar was very strong, she used one table-spoonful of it and one of water, poured them over the mint and stirred it till the sugar was dissolved.
Marta, meantime, had put the plates and dishes to warm, and Molly sent the mint sauce to the table.
“Marta, you will need, to dress the cabbage, a little milk, a table-spoonful of butter, and a large tea-spoonful of flour. Make the flour and butter to a paste with the end of a knife. When I take up the meat, you pour the cabbage, which I see will be done in a few minutes, into the colander; the leaves are like marrow now, but the stalk is a little hard; when it is in the colander, press it with a plate to get every drop of water out, and put it back into the pot, with butter and flour, a scant salt-spoonful of salt, a little white pepper, and half a tea-cupful of milk. You must remember, too, that when I am not here to help you dish the dinner, you must put your meat in the oven five minutes sooner; it can be taken up before the vegetables, but on no account must you take up vegetables first, and let them wait. Never put them on too soon. Now put the warm dishes on the table in the order in which they will be needed; the meat-platter first, the vegetable-dishes next. The macaroni you will bring in after I ring for you to take out the meat,—I mean, you will take away the meat and vegetables, then bring in the macaroni and fresh plates, and after that, the tomatoes, as a salad; and, last of all, the fruit and tea. Now go and put the cracked ice on the table, the pitcher of water, and the butter with a piece of ice on it, and come quickly back.”
Molly looked again at the macaroni, found a little liquid still at the bottom of the saucepan, and set it nearer the fire to cook away, and now left the cover off.
“Marta, the cabbage is done; pour off the water.”
At the same time Molly took the meat out of the oven, and set it in the pan on the stove; she removed the crisp brown shoulder to the platter, put the potatoes round it, and then poured the fat from the corner of the dripping-pan into a jar very gently and carefully, to prevent the small quantity of brown sediment there was from leaving it too, for that was the gravy; when she could get no more fat from one corner, without letting the gravy go too, she changed to another, till it was free from it; she set the pan on the stove and poured in a cup of water and a pinch of salt; with a spoon she rubbed the pan in every direction, to get off the clinging glaze or dried gravy, and then she let the water boil fast while she looked after Marta and the cabbage which she was stirring.
“Take a knife, Marta, and cut the cabbage across several times, and then, when the milk forms a creamy dressing and it all bubbles together, turn it out into the dish.”
The gravy had in two minutes boiled down enough,—there was very little from such a small joint; it was poured through a strainer and, with the meat, put to keep warm while Molly made tea.
“Turn the cabbage out now, Marta; put the cover on the dish and take it to the dining-room; then take the meat and bring in the macaroni when I ask you for it, but you can put it in the dish ready, and keep it hot. When all is ready, put on a white apron, which I hung for you behind the door, and tell Mr. Bishop, whom I see in the garden, that dinner is ready.”
Molly had dressed herself in the afternoon and only needed to run up-stairs to remove traces of her work. As the clock struck six she heard Marta carrying in dinner, and got down herself in time to tell Harry it was served.
“What joint may this be, my dear?” Harry asked when seated.
“Ah! that is the English delicacy, a ‘shoulder of lamb.’ Don’t you remember Sam Weller’s ‘shoulder of mutton and trimmings’ at the ‘Swarry?’ There is a particular way to carve it, which my mother used to be very particular about. I can only describe it by saying, you cut it like a leg, and there is the same reason for beginning at the right side,—on one side you can cut only a shallow gash and a meagre slice, on the other a deep one,—therefore, till you are familiar with the joint, prod for the bone with your fork and make one deep cut to the centre on the side where the meat is thickest.”
Harry did “prod,” and then, planting his fork, stood the joint on its side and made one cut, and the joint yawned as if a wedge had been cut out.
“There is a mythical anecdote about a lady starving herself to death on shoulder of mutton.”
“How so?”
“Why, she chose that joint every day and merely made that cut, so that when it left the table it looked as if a meal had been eaten from it, and no one commented on her abstinence from food. Thank you, I will take the dish gravy.”
“I approve of shoulder of lamb decidedly,” said Harry, during dinner.
“I am glad, for, though our English cousins look on it as far more choice than the leg, and pay more for it, it is sold here at a much lower price.”
“But what vegetable may this be?” he asked, looking curiously at the pale green, appetizing cabbage. “Cauliflower, I suppose, that has met with disasters?”
“No, it is cabbage, and I want you to eat and see if it is not good.”
“You don’t mean to tell me cabbage has been cooked in this house to-day?”
“You see it.”
“And we are not choked! Molly, I surrender; you are a magician!”
In short, Molly’s dinner was a success, and Harry no longer looked on cabbage as unfit for a “cultured palate.”
While Harry smoked his pipe on the piazza, after dinner, Molly went over her accounts. Her grocer’s bill, for what she supposed would be a month’s stores, was as follows:—
There were several things, such as soap, starch, flour, and sugar, Molly would have liked to buy in large quantities, but she wanted first to see her expenditure; she reckoned that what she had ordered of each article would last a month, and a few things, such as vinegar, bluing, sauce, wine, etc., much longer. “But I must wait till the end of the week before I can really know. The first week or month is always more expensive in housekeeping. I must add, too, to my expenditure, to-day, ten cents for cream, which will make it $3, but I have meat in the house, and if I allow one-fourth of the grocery bill for this week I have left $4.50.”
Molly was not without her anxieties that she might be wrong on her estimates, often as she had gone over them on paper. Suddenly she looked up. “I forgot the yeast, and I want to make bread!”