“They’ll be hungry as horses by noon,” said Grandma. “I guess I’ll flax round and stir ’em up some gingerbread.”
Grandma seemed chief cook of the establishment. Already she had baked a batch of bread since she got up, and had dried-apple pies to pop into the oven, and a piece of meat—to Jacqueline it looked mostly bone and gristle—simmering on the back of the stove, lest it spoil in the hot weather. She now mixed gingerbread, as spry as you please, and meantime gave directions about putting Annie outside in the baby pen, and taking the table-leavings to the hens, and setting another kettle of hot water to boil.
“You’ll need some rinsing water or your dishes will be streaked,” she told Jacqueline. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything, even dishes, and it’s just as easy to do it right as wrong.” Jacqueline didn’t mind, for one day only. She thought dish washing rather a game. She and Nellie brought the things out from the dining room.
“Take the tray,” said Grandma, “and bring a lot at a time. Always made your head save your heels.”
Then they rinsed the milky glasses, and they scraped the plates. Jacqueline was going to add to the scraps for the hens the bit of hash that was on the platter, but Grandma stopped her with a gesture of positive horror.
“Mercy, child! Don’t throw away good clean victuals, even if the war is over. Put it in that clean little cracked dish. It’ll warm up nice and tasty for somebody’s supper. The butter goes in that stone jar. Let those biscuits cool before you put ’em into the bread box. Never shut up hot bread in a close box, or it’ll spoil on you.”
What a lot of things to remember, thought Jacqueline! This was more exciting than mental arithmetic.
She washed the dishes just as Grandma told her, and Nellie wiped them painstakingly. First they did the glasses, then “the silver”—poor plated ware that it was!
“Be sure to get the tines of the forks clean,” cautioned Grandma. “And remember, when we have eggs, not to plump your silver and your dishes into hot water, or you’ll cook the egg right to ’em. Wash eggy things first in cold water, always.” After the silver, came the plates and the cups, and last of all “the calicoes,” as Grandma called the cooking dishes. Then the dish pan must be scalded, and the dish towels set to boil upon the stove, and while they were boiling, Jacqueline brushed up the dining room, rather an amateurish job, but Grandma said she took hold handily. Then Jacqueline and Nellie, each with a big square of soft cloth, dusted the dining room furniture, and last of all, they hung their dish towels out in the warm sun to dry.
By that time Jacqueline had had enough of housework. She was ready to say so, and to quit right then and there. But Grandma said: