“You want to get me out of the way, I suppose, so you can keep up this orgy until all hours. I know you, you minx! I shan’t budge until I know all about it so you may as well begin.” He surveyed the group with a smiling imperturbable manner that was impossible to withstand. Jack, gazing at him out of the corner of his eye, thought he had never seen so splendid a gentleman and indeed his evening clothes became the Doctor tremendously so that he had never looked more handsome nor distinguished than at that moment as he sat among them leaning back in the kitchen chair.
“It is all this wedding-cake,” said Hester disgustedly. “It has acted like Sam Patch!”
“It is the first we have ever done,” explained Julie. “We took an order for two hundred boxes of cake and a big loaf, all for a wedding, and we made the cake a month ago. Oh! such a time as we had! You see, we are such ignoramuses that we have to wade through endless wrong ways before we discover the right one and we thought we had all the loaves properly frosted to cut for the boxes; but when we tried to cut the slices all the frosting fell off and so we had to begin all over again. Then we decided it would be better to cut the cake up into pieces for the boxes first and frost each one separately and—”
“We didn’t any such thing!” interrupted Hester. “That was Julie’s brilliant inspiration and she worked out all the frosting designs too. The big loaf and the bride’s cake are perfect beauties. Did you know the bride’s cake always had a ring and a thimble and a coin hidden in it for luck? Just look at the cakes over there,” waving her hand toward a side table, “aren’t they distinctly professional? Julie’s been hanging around caterers’ windows with her nose pressed against the glass studying their fancy frosted show pieces until I wonder she hasn’t been arrested for a suspicious character. Of course that childlike and bland countenance of hers was greatly in her favor but,” resignedly, “I was prepared for the worst.”
“Miss Hester will have her laugh,” said Bridget, “but ’tain’t no laughin’ matter this job they’re putting through!”
“Now Bridget, you keep still,” expostulated Julie. “She has been scolding us all the evening,” to Dr. Ware, “and frightening poor Jack to death, hasn’t she, Jack? Jack came to bring Daddy’s paper, you know, which he prints in great style since Mr. Landor has given him a printing press, and when he found we were busy he begged so hard to come out to the kitchen and help that we just had to let him. He’s been helping Bridget cut paraffine paper into squares—for each piece of cake has to be wrapped separately before it goes into its box—and they have cut all the white ribbon into pieces the right length to tie around the boxes and now they’re uncovering the boxes and getting them ready for the cake as soon as the frosting dries. Jack has been invaluable, hasn’t he, Bridget?”
“Humph!” grunted Bridget, with whom, nevertheless, the boy was a prime favorite.
“Good heavens! Julie,” cried the Doctor, “does one little box of wedding-cake mean all that?”
“Two hundred do,” smiling, “but another time we’ll know better how to go at it.”
All during this conversation she and Hester had been bending over the big work-table making curious evolutions with frosting bags over the pieces of cake spread everywhere about the room. Presently Hester dropped her bag and sat down.