Ellen, I believe, thought that they had better not attempt the risky experiment, but should start some hop-yeast bread.
Theodora, however, peeped into the old mug, saw encouraging eyes in it, and resolved to go on. They mixed it up with the necessary warm water and flour and set it carefully back for the second rising.
Perhaps they had a little hotter fire than usual, perhaps they had hurried it a shade too much, or—well, you can "perhaps" anything you like with milk-yeast bread. At all events, it took the wrong turn and began to perfume the kitchen.
If they had not been hard pressed and a little flurried that morning, the girls would probably have thrown it out. Instead, they took it down, saw that it was rising a little and—hoping that it would yet pull through—worked in more flour and soda, and hurried four loaves of it into the oven to bake.
Then it was that the unleavened turpitude of that hostile microbe displayed the full measure of its malignity. A horrible odor presently filled the place. Stale eggs would have been Araby the Blest beside it.
The girls hastily shut the kitchen doors, but doors would not hold it in. It captured the whole house. Aunt Nabbie, in the sitting-room, perceived it and came rustling out to give motherly advice and assistance.
And it chanced that while Theodora was confidentially explaining it to her, the kitchen door leading to the front piazza opened, and in walked Uncle Pascal, with Olin behind him. They had been out in the garden looking at the fruit, and had come back to get Aunt Nabbie to see the bees.
When that awful odor smote them they stopped short. Uncle Mowbray was a fastidious man. He sniffed and turned up his nose.
"Is it sink spouts?" he gasped. "Are the traps out of order?"
"No, no, Pascal!" said Aunt Nabbie, in a low tone, trying to quiet him. "It is only bread."