The Institute of Technology is not a public school as the Dwight School is, where Nahum had picked up his elementary instruction; and for his lessons here they had to pay thirty dollars. But when, the next summer, all the barns on his uncle’s farm in Harris were carried fourteen miles by a tornado, and Nahum found himself directing the framing of a new barn, and doing half the work, he and his aunt thought that those thirty dollars had been well invested.
She took very good care that George should go into the carpenter’s class at the Dwight School while they staid in Boston. He would not have been obliged to go. No scholar took this course, excepting as an extra, but he took it because he wanted to. And, as Nahum had said, they were obliged to keep in good standing in their other studies.
As for little Sibyl, Aunt Fanny judged, after full consultation with her confidential adviser, Belle, that Sibyl had better stay where she was—at the Grammar School. Aunt Fanny went down and made a state call on Miss Throckmorton, the teacher of the school, and also saw Miss Bell, the sewing teacher. She explained to them that while she did not want to break any school rules, she should be well pleased to have as much attention as possible given to Sibyl’s sewing. Miss Bell was really pleased with the attention. She said a good many parents did not seem to care anything about it. But if Sibyl would really give her mind to it, she would see that she was able, before she left them in the spring, to cut and fit a frock for Aunt Fanny or for her sister. And before they went to Wisconsin, it proved that Miss Bell was as good as her word to her little friend, and Sibyl made a very pretty dress for Aunt Fanny, before she left school.
III.
As Aunt Fanny herself made her inquiries into these practical matters, she resolved to try an experiment, which she would have laughed at when she left Wisconsin. She was asked to a lunch party of ladies one day, and was a little amused and a little amazed at first, when she observed how much they said about what they had to eat. Aunt Fanny had been trained to a little of the western ridicule of Boston, and had supposed that a bubble rechauffée or a fried rainbow was the most material article that anybody would discuss. And here these ladies were volubly telling of the merits of oysters in batter and oysters in crumbs—of one and another way to serve celery—in a detail which Aunt Fanny found quite puzzling, and, indeed, quite out of place in the manners to which she had been bred, which had taught her never to criticise what was on the table.
Perhaps her silence showed her surprise. This is certain, that all of a sudden a very pretty and gay Mrs. Fréchette turned round and said, “Here is Mrs. Turnbull, horrified because we talk so much of what we eat. Dear Mrs. Turnbull, it is not what we eat, it is the cooking we care for. You must know we have all been to the Cooking Schools—all who are not managers.”
Aunt Fanny confessed that she had been puzzled a little, and Mrs. Fréchette and Mrs. Champernom, her hostess, explained. In point of fact this very lunch had been cooked, “From egg to apple,” as the Romans would say, by Mrs. Champernom and her two daughters. It may be worth while, therefore, to give the bill of fare:
Raw Oysters on the shell.
Bouillon in cups.
Scalloped Lobster in its own shell.
Quails on Toast, with White Sauce.
Sweet Breads, with Green Peas.
Capons, with Salad.
Ice Creams. Frozen Pudding. Jelly.
Fruit. Coffee.
How good cooks the mother and daughters had been before, they did not explain. But these particular results were due to their training at the Cooking School. They had made the rolls as well.