"Bread!" cried Uncle Mowbray, with a glance of rank suspicion at the two girls. "Bread smelling like that!"
Just then Ellen discovered something white, which appeared to be mysteriously increasing in size, in the shadow on the back side of the kitchen stove. After a glance she caught open the oven door.
It was that mug-bread dough! It had crawled—crawled out of the tins into the oven—crawled down under the oven door to the kitchen floor, where it made a viscous puddle, and was now trying, apparently, to crawl out of sight under the wood-box.
Aunt Nabbie burst out laughing; she could not help it. Then she tried to turn Uncle Mowbray out.
But no, he must stand there and talk about it. He was one of those men who are always peeping round the kitchen, to see if the women are doing things right. But Olin scudded out after one look, and the girls saw him under one of the Balm o' Gilead trees, shaking and laughing as if he would split.
Poor Doad and Nell! That was a dreadful forenoon for them. As youthful housekeepers they felt, themselves disgraced beyond redemption. In three years they had not recovered from it, and would cringe when any one reminded them of Uncle Mowbray and the mug-bread.