This Molly managed to convey by words and actions, and Marta nodded comprehension.
“Now then, as we are such a small family, I take a pint of flour only, and a scant dessert-spoonful of butter, and rub it in the flour this way, do you see? until it is just like sand. Now I add a salt-spoonful of salt, two tea-spoonfuls of sugar, and a small tea-spoonful of baking-powder; be very careful of the proportions, for it is just by doing this that you are sure never to have days when things turn out wrong; they cannot do that, if you are exact and right.
“Now mix all thoroughly, and you see I take this scant half pint of milk; I make a hole in the flour and pour it partly in, stirring as I do it, and if I see it needs more in order to keep it the stiffest kind of batter or the softest kind of dough, I add it; it takes all the half pint, you see, but with flour you can’t be quite sure of the exact quantity, and a tea-spoonful too much would make it too thin. Now, you see, it is so very thick I can hardly stir it, yet it is far from being stiff enough to knead. Butter that tin pan and give it to me.”
Marta understood the order, but began slowly to spread butter from the end of a knife. Molly took a bit of white paper, and taking the pan from her quickly, for the biscuit had now to be got into the oven as soon as possible, she rubbed a bit of butter over it.
“Too many cooks spoil the broth, Marta. If I had been working quite alone I should have greased my pan before beginning; it is very bad management to leave it.” As she spoke she was taking the paste on the end of her spoon, and dropping it in little oblong mounds on the pan, about two inches apart. In another minute they were in the oven, which was very hot.
“My mother used to pride herself on these biscuits, and gave herself fifteen minutes to make and bake them. Now for the salad.”
Molly quickly opened the can of chicken she had bought, and cut the contents in half; one portion she turned out on a dish, and set the other aside to go into the ice-box. Then she set Marta to open olives and salad oil, while she herself cut the chicken into small pieces, removing every bit of skin that was on it. When the olives were open, she took a small, sharp, knife and calling Marta’s attention to an olive, she cut into it till the edge of the knife touched the stone, and then began to peel that stone, as it were, being careful not to break the peel, and keeping close to the stone. When the knife had passed all around, the stone was in her left thumb and finger, the peel or stoned olive in her right. The stone was bare except at the ends, and the olive peel curled back into its old form, minus those ends.
“Now, Marta, see if you can stone six olives as I did that. Never mind if you break the first.”
Molly saw Marta start right, then she poured out a table-spoonful of oil and a half one of vinegar, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a scant half one of pepper. These she mixed thoroughly and poured over the chicken, taking care that it should go well through it. Then she looked into the oven. The biscuits had been in five minutes; they had puffed up and were nearly done.
When first the groceries had come, Molly, mindful of her mayonnaise, had put an egg, bowl, and spoon in the ice-box, and, had the day been hot, she would have put the oil there too. She went for them now, and knew that the minute it took her to get them had sufficed to give the biscuit just the tint she wanted, a pale golden brown; she took them out and set them in the warming-closet of the range, and returned to her salad. She wanted Marta to wash the lettuce, but having set her to stone olives was careful not to take her from that task.