“Of course. Anybody can cut bread, I should think; where’s the knife?”
“I can’t find any regular bread-knife,” said Cricket, rummaging in the cupboard. “Here’s one, take this; it’s awfully dull, though. While you’re cutting it, I’ll look for a gridiron to toast the bread on.”
Hilda took the loaf and the knife confidently, but soon discovered that cutting bread is a fine art, and not by any means so easy as it looks.
“What is the matter?” she said in despair, at last. “Well, nobody could cut bread with this old knife, that’s as dull as a hoe,” she added, surveying the jagged, uneven wedges, which were all she could manage. “Have you found the gridiron?”
“No. She doesn’t seem to have anything except a teakettle and a saucepan. And here’s a flat thing like what cook fries potatoes in, and here’s a tin pan, and that’s every single thing I can find. What do you suppose she cooks with?” asked Cricket, with increasing surprise, and with a vision before her eyes of the quantities of shining utensils that lined the kitchen closets at home.
“Toast the bread on a fork, then,” said Hilda; “and can’t we cook the herring in some way? I’m getting hungry enough to eat nails now.”
“I suppose we might fry them. Then we could toast the cheese. I know how to do that.”
“All right! we’ll fry the herring in the spider,” said Hilda, brightening; “I believe it will be real good. But what will Mosina eat? Ought she to have herring and toasted cheese?”
“Oh, here’s some milk out on the window ledge!” cried Cricket, joyfully. “We can crumble some of this dry bread in it, and feed Mosina with it. That will be fine for her. Bless the child! she’s as good as a lamb now.”
“Isn’t she! I’ll toast the bread, and you can set the table, Cricket.”