The girls had agreed to get supper all by themselves. 134 Liz and Mrs. Morse were to have nothing to do with it.
Bobby and Laura made cake. There were chickens to roast—two pairs of them—that Lance had thoughtfully bought of a woman at the Crossing. These were handed over to the tender mercies of Jess and Nell.
Now, Jess was a good cook; she did most of the housework at the Morse cottage. But when they had had chicken, the butcher always cleaned the creature before sending it home.
“My goodness!” sniffed Nell. “What do you know about taking a chicken apart?”
“Not—not much, I am afraid,” admitted Jess, “And here are four of them! Well, we ought to learn a good deal about it by the time we have butchered all four.”
“Ugh! I don’t want to cut into them. And some of their insides are the delicacies of the chicken, while other parts are no good. Do you know one from the other, Jess?”
“I reckon I know the giblets—if I can once get at them,” said Jess.
“Mother and I took our sewing machine to pieces once, and fixed it,” Nellie said, “and that was pretty complicated. But we had a book of instructions––”
“They don’t issue a book of instructions with 135 a roasting chicken,” Jess chuckled. “It’s up to us, I expect––”
Then she called Lance. They had to admit a boy was good for something once in a while. Lance knew all about cleaning and drawing chickens, and he did that part of the work very neatly and with dispatch.