"How many of you girls would do any better?" added Polly.
"I can't cook the first solitary thing," admitted Florence; "but I had a cousin that used to make bread when she was ten years old."
"Much good that does you," remarked Alan disrespectfully. "My grandmother was a splendid cook, but I never found that it helped Molly any."
"I can cook," said Jean, with manifest pride; "I know how to do meat and lots of things; but I don't suppose I should, if I hadn't had to."
"I always wanted to get into the kitchen, when I was a little girl," said Florence. "We had one girl that used to let me roll out pie-crust and stir up muffins; but mamma caught me one day, with a new gown all covered with flour and bits of dough, and after that there was no kitchen for me."
"Ask Alan how he boiled some meat once," said Molly.
Alan hung his head in confusion.
"I'll tell you, if he won't," went on his sister mercilessly. "Two years ago we had some company just before Thanksgiving, and mamma wanted to boil some meat for mince pies. We hadn't any girl, so when we went to ride, she told Alan, to watch it and put in more water when it needed it, so it shouldn't burn. He went off to play ball and forgot it, and—"Molly made an impressive pause.
"Go on, Molly," urged Polly, delighted that the tables were turned, and Alan's failings to be brought to light.
"Well," resumed Molly, ignoring her brother's threatening glances; "as soon as we turned the corner, coming home, we noticed a most awful smell. It grew worse, the nearer we came to the house; and then we saw the kitchen door wide open, and the smoke just pouring out in streams." Molly's metaphors were becoming mixed, but the girls never minded that, as she continued, "Mamma was dreadfully frightened, for she thought the house was on fire. We rushed in, and there was the meat frizzling away on the stove, and Alan so excited that he was just hopping up and down and crying, and letting it burn away, because he didn't dare take it off. It was more than a week before the smoke was out of the house."