Mammy could not resist this authoritative warning. Then bustling across to her pantry she took out three shining pans and placed them beside the saucepans, asking:
“Now is yo’ fixed wid all de impert’nances ob de bisness?”
“All but the fire, Mammy,” laughed Constance, rolling up her sleeves to disclose two strong, well-rounded arms.
“Well yo’ fire’s gwine ter be gas dis time, chile’. Yo’ kin do what yo’s a-mind ter wid dat little gas refrig’rator, what yo’ turns on an’ off wid de spiggots; I aint got er mite er use fer hit. It lak ter scare me mos’ ter deaf de fust mawnin’ I done try ter cook de breckfus on it,—sputterin’ an’ roarin’ lak it gwine blow de hull house up. No-siree, I ain’ gwine be pestered wid no sich doin’s ’s dat. Stoves an’ wood ’s good ’nough fer dis ’oman,” asserted Mammy with an empathic wag of her head, for she had never before seen a gas range, and was not in favor of innovations.
“Then I’m in luck,” cried Constance, as she struck a match to light up her “gas refrigerator,” Mammy meanwhile eying her with not a little misgiving, and standing as far as possible from the fearsome thing. “Tek keer, honey! Yo’ don’ know what dem new-fangled mak’-believe stoves lak ter do. Fust t’ing yo’ know it bus’ wide open mebbe.”
“Don’t be scared, Mammy. They are all right, and safe as can be if you know how to handle them, and lots less trouble than the stove.”
“Dat may be too,” was Mammy’s skeptical reply. “But I’ll tek de trouble stidder de chance of a busted haid.”
Before long the odor of boiling sugar filled the little kitchen, the confectioner growing warm and rosy as she wielded a huge wooden spoon in the boiling contents of her saucepans, and whistled like a song thrush. Constance Carruth’s whistle had always been a marvel to the members of her family, and the subject of much comment to the few outsiders who had been fortunate enough to hear it, occasionally, for it was well worth hearing. It had a wonderful flute-like quality, with the softest, tenderest, low notes. Moreover, she whistled without any apparent effort, or the ordinary distortion of the mouth which whistling generally involves. The position of her lips seemed scarcely altered while the soft sounds fell from them. But she was very shy about her “one accomplishment,” as she laughingly called it, and could rarely be induced to whistle for others, though she seldom worked without filling the house with that birdlike melody. As she grew more and more absorbed with her candy-making the clear, sweet notes rose higher and higher, their rapid crescendo and increasing tempo indicating her successful progress toward a desired end.
While apparently engaged in preparing a panful of apples, Mammy was covertly watching her, for, next to her baby, Jean, Constance was Mammy’s pet.
When the candy was done, Constance poured it into the pans.