Soon the apples were pared, cored, and sliced, and away Randy hurried to the closet, getting the sifter, sugar-bucket and rolling pin, the spice box, and last of all, a lot of plates.
Running back to the closet she brought out the lard and began to grease the plates in furious haste, so determined was she to show her mother that she was really willing to be helpful. How she admired the deft manner in which her mother rolled out the crust, stretched it over the plate, and inserted her knuckles to make it fit the hollow of the dish.
Randy watched her as, balancing the crust-covered plate on her left hand, she swept the knife which she held in her right swiftly around the edge of the plate, trimming off the extra crust.
“I wish I could make pies as quick as you can,” said the girl, “and have them turn out right every time, too.”
Mrs. Weston smiled at the compliment so earnestly expressed.
“Mebbe you can, when you’ve made as many as I have,” said she.
“Now get the broom, Randy, and sweep up the flour I spilled ’round the table and put the apple peels in the bucket, while I commence to wash up the cookin’ dishes.”
Randy got the broom and began to sweep vigorously. “I wonder,” thought the girl, “if princesses have to bake pies, and wash dishes, and sweep hot kitchens.” She could not remember of any mention being made of either pies or kitchens in the fairy tales which she had been reading, so she concluded that in those delightful days no such things existed.
“They must have had pies,” she said to herself, “so p’r’aps they had somebody to bake for them, same’s Mrs. Hodgkins has Sophrony Brown to help her about the housework.
“Sophrony Brown doesn’t look ’s if she belonged in a castle, even to stay in the kitchen, if it had one,” thought Randy. “Her hair’s red, and so are her hands, and they’re awful big, too. Everybody in that splendid book was handsome, and they all had little white hands and tiny feet, too.” Here she stopped and took a long survey of her own feet, encased in coarse, cowhide boots, with leather lacings.