When Life Was Young: At the Old Farm in Maine

by C. A. Stephens

Let not a novice like myself, however, presume to descant on the subject of fried pies to the thousands who doubtless know all the details of their manufacture. Theodora first prepared her dough, sweetened and mixed like ordinary doughnut dough, rolled it like a thick pie crust and then enclosed the "filling," consisting of mince-meat, or stewed apple, or gooseberry, or plum, or blackberry; or perhaps peach, raspberry, or preserved cherries. Only such fruits must be cooked and the pits or stones of plums or peaches carefully removed. The edges of the dough were wet and dexterously crimped together, so that the pie would not open in frying.

Then when the big pan of fat on the stove was just beginning to get smoking hot, the pies were launched gently in at one side and allowed to sink and rise. And about that time it was well to be watchful; for there was no telling just when a swelling, hot pie might take a fancy to enact the role of a bomb-shell and blow the blistering hot fat on all sides.

After suffering from a bad burn on one of her wrists the previous winter, Theodora had learned not to take chances with fried pies. She had a face mask which Addison had made for her, from pink pasteboard, and a pair of blue goggles for the eyes, which some member of the family had once made use of for snow blindness. The mask as I remember wore an irresistible grin.

When ready to begin frying two dozen pies, Theodora donned the mask and goggles and put on a pair of old kid gloves. Then if spatters of hot fat flew, she was none the worse;—but it was quite a sight to see her rigged for the occasion. The goggles were of portentous size, and we boys used to clap and cheer when she made her appearance.

As an article of diet, perhaps, fried pies could hardly be commended for invalids; but to a boy who had been working hard, or racing about for hours in the fresh air out of doors, they were simply delicious and went exactly to the right spot. Few articles of food are more appetizing to the eye than the rich doughnut brown of a fine fried pie.

That forenoon we coaxed Theodora and Ellen to fry a batch of three dozen, and two "Jonahs;" and the girls, with some misgivings as to what Gram would say to them for making such inroads on "pie timber," set about it by ten o'clock. Be it said, however, that "closeness" in the matter of daily food was not one of Gram's faults. She always laid in a large supply of "pie timber" and was not much concerned for fear of a shortage.

They filled half a dozen with mince-meat, half a dozen with stewed gooseberry, and then half a dozen each, of crab apple jelly, plum, peach and blackberry. They would not let us see what they filled the "Jonahs" with, but we knew that it was a fearful load. Generally it was with something shockingly sour, or bitter. The "Jonahs" looked precisely like the others and were mixed with the others on the platter which was passed at table, for each one to take his or her choice. And the rule was that whoever got the "Jonah pie" must either eat it, or crawl under the table for a foot-stool for the others during the rest of the meal!

What they actually put in the two "Jonahs," this time, was wheat bran mixed with cayenne pepper—an awful dose such as no mortal mouth could possibly bear up under! It is needless to say that the girls usually kept an eye on the Jonah pie or placed some slight private mark on it, so as not to get it themselves.

When we were alone and had something particularly good on the table, Addison and Theodora had a habit of making up rhymes about it, before passing it around, and sometimes the rest of us attempted to join in the recreation, generally with indifferent success. Kate Edwards had come in that day, and being invited to remain to our feast of fried pies, was contributing her wit to the rhyming contest, when chancing to glance out of the window, Ellen espied a gray horse and buggy with the top turned back, standing in the yard, and in the buggy a large elderly, dark-complexioned man, a stranger to all of us, who sat regarding the premises with a smile of shrewd and pleasant contemplation.

"Now who in the world can that be?" exclaimed Ellen in low tones. "I do believe he has overheard some of those awful verses you have been making up."