“No, I don’t.”
“Then don’t you think we had better try another baker who doesn’t make sour bread, or”—this was said very slowly, as if it would be a sad necessity—“I might bring it out from New York.”
Molly laughed merrily.
“I think I see you! Surely then you could joke about your martyrdom. No, my dear boy, you’re going to have no such toothsome morsel as that for a joke, but I see you are afraid of stale bread.”
“The truth is, I have a lively recollection of living in the country and eating bread a week old, and older still sometimes, when the general appetite failed, and I don’t believe I’m up to that sort of thing now.”
“I don’t think you are, so you will not be tested. Now-a-days one doesn’t fear baking as one used to do. It is no more trouble to make bread three times a week than to boil potatoes.”
“I’m delighted to hear it. I’m learning every hour my own benighted ignorance.”
When they reached home Molly went into the kitchen and put one quarter of the yeast cake in a pint of warm water, which she made Marta, who was to make the next bread, feel was just about as warm as milk from the cow, then she put a heaped quart of flour in the mixing-bowl and set it in the oven with the door open, telling Marta to stir it in a few minutes that it might get evenly warm through.
“I am doing this, Marta, because I do not know this flour. It may be very new or damp; by drying it I shall be on the safe side. In cold weather you must warm it always, so that the water, yeast, and flour are all about the same temperature.”
When the yeast was quite dissolved by stirring, she put into the water one tea-spoonful of salt and two of sugar, made a hole in the flour and poured the liquid in, and the whole made a soft dough which slightly stuck to her hands.