The Emergency Closet—Winter Preserves—Cake
"The lesson to-day begins with a story, a story with a moral, too," said Mrs. Thorne. "Once upon a time, when I was a young and inexperienced housekeeper, it began to snow early in the morning, before I had been out to market. It happened that everything in the house had given out at once, and I had a long list of things to get, but as I had a bad cold I did not wish to go out in the storm. I waited nearly all day for it to stop, as it was against my principles even then to telephone for anything, but at last, as it began to grow dark, I could not wait longer, and took my receiver to call up the grocery and meat market, only to find the wires were down. What to do I did not know. Even if I ventured out it was now too late to hope to have anything delivered before dinner-time, and I could not carry the food home in my arms and at the same time manage a dress and an umbrella.
"Well, just as I was trying to make up my mind to go and borrow something of the neighbors whom I didn't know, which made things all the harder for me, a strange grocery boy came to my door by mistake, thinking it was the apartment above. I saw my chance, and poured out my tale of woe to him and begged him to help me. Of course I could not ask him to go to the meat market for me, but between us we planned a meal which we could get at the grocery, and I tipped him to go and get the things and bring them back at once, and I would pay for them on delivery. He said he had canned roast beef, for one thing, so we began with that. Then he was to bring canned string-beans, and some oranges for dessert, besides the staples I had to have. It was an expensive meal, I assure you, for roast beef is not cheap, even when it is tinned. I thought then I must have meat, at any price. I know better to-day, and could now plan a supper which would cost about a quarter of what that meal came to. However, as I said, I ordered the things, laid the table, put on the potatoes to boil, and the groceries came just before six o'clock. Ten minutes later Dick appeared, bringing with him two college friends who happened to be in town for the day, men I had never met, and for whom I certainly would have wished to have a good dinner!
"There was nothing to be done but to make the best of things. We had a first course of the beef, heated in gravy, with potatoes and pickled pears. The string-beans I served up in a salad, though of course I wanted them with the meat; but I was determined to have three courses, somehow; I had no crackers or cheese to serve with it, either, and plain beans seemed very little. The dessert was oranges and coffee. How I wished I had anything else, even nuts, to help out, but there was nothing whatever. I simply lived from hand to mouth in those days and bought supplies enough for only one day at a time. Well, we tried to make up in conversation what we lacked in food, and I thought of what some novelist of New England life once suggested, that when the cake was heavy you should always turn the talk toward the sufferings of the Pilgrim Fathers. But I can tell you that experience taught me a lesson. Never again did I fail to have something to set out in an emergency, and now anybody may drop in, day or night, and I can furnish a really good meal; not an extravagant one, but one that I shall not be ashamed to offer."
"That reminds me to tell you something. This morning, after you left the dining-room, I was telling Dick about the luncheon yesterday, and how you managed to get up such a good one for the Cliffords, and he said, 'Dolly, you and Mary are having far too easy a time of it. One of these days I am going to surprise you with a nice little dinner-party by bringing home two fellows I know.' His eyes twinkled as though he was planning a joke of some sort."
"Yes, I know the kind of joke perfectly well; he often springs these surprises on me when he thinks he will catch me unprepared, but that only makes me more determined to have everything ready for such an event. Come now and see my emergency closet, and you will understand why Dick's little jokes do not alarm me."
The closet was dark, but Mary lighted a gas-jet and showed rows of shelves stretching almost from the floor to the ceiling, with pots and jars and packages, fruit-cans and jelly-glasses and paper boxes.
"Here in the middle part are my groceries," she began, pointing out some well-stocked shelves. "First come the tins of soup, only two, because they are of the best kind and expensive; but I have those on hand all the time, for they are very good, and such a comfort when you are in great need. Next are the tins of meat and fish; not roast beef now, but a can of tongue, two of chicken, and bacon, and several of salmon and sardines. Then come the vegetables, two of each kind, like the animals in the ark: grated corn, peas, string-beans, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Here are several kinds of crackers, to serve with fancy cheese, either with salad or for dessert, and the cheese as well, three pots, two small ones and one of larger size. And I have two cans of condensed milk, a jar of beef extract, and some nuts. Here are olives, too, and a pot of ginger, and some quickly made gelatine for jelly. All that last needs is to add hot water and pour it into a mould, and before you know it it is ready for use, and very pretty and good. You can imagine how, if we were actually without another thing in the house except what is here, with perhaps coffee and sugar and potatoes, we could have a good dinner. First soup; then hot tongue with a brown sauce, with potatoes and grated corn made into a custard; then a salad of string-beans, with crackers and cheese; then jelly, for dessert; and we could follow this up with a breakfast of bacon and a luncheon of creamed chicken, you see."
"But, Mary, these things must have cost a great deal of money; dollars and dollars, I am sure. How did you ever get them?"