"Cook," Drusilla said, "I'm hungry for some home cookin' and I want to do it myself. I ain't cooked none fer a good many years, and my fingers is jest itchin' to git into the flour. Where's your flour and things to make cake?"
The chef was shocked.
"Mais, Madame."
"Yes, Madame may, and she's goin' to; so show me where the things is." She rolled up her sleeves. "Now you git me that big yellow bowl, and give me the lard. I'm goin' to make doughnuts—fried cakes I used to call 'em, tho' it's more stylish to say doughnuts these days. I don't like them that's bought in the store with sugar sprinkled on top; sugar don't belong on fried cakes. It takes away their crispiness and you might jest as well be eatin' cake."
Drusilla kept the chef busy waiting on her until she had all the articles needed. Then she turned upon him.
"Now, you go away. Go up to your room, or down to James. I don't want you standin' round lookin' as if you was goin' to bust every minute. You got to git used to this. I'm goin' to have a bakin' day once a week, same as I did for forty year."
Drusilla spent a happy morning. The "fried cakes" finished, she decided to make some cookies—the "old-fashioned kind that my mother's sister Jane give me the receipt of; I kind o' want to see if I have lost my hand."
But the hand had not lost its cunning if the great dish of brown, crisp doughnuts, and the cookies and the gingerbread were a test. After they were baked and in a row on the table, she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork, with a proud expression on her kindly old face.
"Now if I only had some one to come in and say, 'Drusilla, is them fresh fried cakes?' and I'd laugh and say, 'Yes; do try 'em,' and they'd eat three or four. Or if I only had some neighbors—"
Drusilla stopped suddenly.