Meantime, Cornelia in the kitchen started the fire up brightly, put on the tea-kettle, and began to concoct a soft gingerbread with the aid of the nice thick sour milk. When it was in the oven, she hunted out her mother’s old worn breadraiser, greased the squeaking handle with butter, and started some bread. She remembered how everybody in the family loved mother’s home-made bread; and, if there was one thing above another in which she had excelled as a little girl in the kitchen, it was in making bread. Somehow it did not seem as though things were on a right basis until she had some bread on the way. As she crumbled the yeast cake into a sauce dish and put it a-soak, she began to hum a little tune; yet her mind was so preoccupied with what she had to do that she scarcely remembered it was the theme of the music that ran all through the college play. College life had somehow receded for the present, and in place of costumes and drapery she was considering what she ought to make and bake in order to have the pantry and refrigerator well stocked, and how soon she might with a clear conscience go upstairs and start clearing up Carey’s bedroom. She couldn’t settle rightly to anything until that awful mess was straightened out. The consciousness of the disorder up there in the third story was like a bruise that had been given her, which made itself more and more felt as the minutes passed.
When the cover was put down tight on the breadraiser, Cornelia looked about her.
“I really ought to clean this kitchen first,” she said thoughtfully, speaking aloud as if she and herself were having it out about the work. “There aren’t enough dishes unpacked for the family to eat comfortably, but there’s not room on those shelves for them if they were unpacked.”
So, with a glance at the rapidly rising gingerbread that let out a whiff of delicious aroma, she mounted on a chair, and began to clear off the top shelves of the dresser. It seemed as if there had been no system whatever in placing things. Bottles of shoe-blacking, a hammer, a box of gingersnaps, a can of putty, and several old neckties were settled in between glass sauce-dishes and the electric iron. She kept coming on little necessities. With small ceremony she swept them all down to an orderly row on the floor on the least-used side of the room, and with soap, hot water, and a scrubbing-brush went at the shelves. It didn’t take long, of course; but she put a great deal of energy into the work, and began to feel actually happy as she smelled the clean soap-suds, and beheld what a difference it made in the shabby, paintless shelves to get rid of the dirt.
“Now, we’ve at least got a spot to put things!” she announced as she took the gingerbread-tins out of the oven, and with great satisfaction noted that she had not forgotten how to make gingerbread in the interval of her college days.
The gingerbread reminded her that she had as yet had no breakfast, but she would not mar the velvet beauty of those fragrant loaves of gingerbread by cutting one now. She cut off a slice of the dry end of a loaf, and buttered it. She was surprised to find how good it tasted as she ate it going about her work, picking up what dishes on the floor belonged back on the shelves, washing and arranging them. Later, if there was time, she would unpack more dishes; but she must get up to Carey’s room. It was like leaving something dead about uncovered, to know that that room looked so above her head.
It was twelve o’clock when she at last got permission of herself to go upstairs; and she carried with her broom, mop, soap, scrubbing-brush, and plenty of hot water and old cloths. She paused at the door of the front room long enough to rummage in the bureau drawers and get out an old all-over gingham apron of her mother’s, which she donned before ascending to the third floor.
In the doorway of her brother’s room she stood appalled once more, scarcely knowing where to begin. Then, putting down her brushes and pails in the hall, she started in at the doorway, picking up the first things that came in her way. Clothes first. She sorted them out quickly, hanging the good things on the railing of the stairs, the worn and soiled ones in piles on the floor, ready for the laundry, the rag-man, and the mending-basket. When the garments were all out, she turned back; and the room seemed to be just as full and just as messy as it had been before. She began again, this time gleaning the newspapers and magazines. That made quite a hole in the floor space. Next she dragged the twisted bedclothes off the mattress, and threw them down the stairs. Somehow they must be washed or aired or duplicated before that bed would be fit to sleep in. After a thoughtful moment of looking over the banisters at them she descended, and carried them all to the little back yard, where she hung them on a short line that had been stretched from the fence to the house. They made a sorry sight, but she would have to leave them till later. The sun and air would help. There wasn’t much sun, and there was still a sharp tang of rain in the air; it had been raining at intervals all the morning. Well, if it rained on them, they certainly needed it; and anyhow it was too late in the day for her to try to wash any of them. She must do the best she could this first day.
Thus she reasoned as she frowningly surveyed the grimy blankets, her eyes lingering on a scorched place near the top of one. Suddenly her expression changed: “You’ve just got to be washed!” she said firmly, and snatching the blankets from the line, rushed in to arrange for large quantities of hot water, cleared off the stationary tubs, and dumped in the blankets, shaved up the only bar of soap she could find, and then went rummaging in the front room while the water was heating. Of course all this took strength, but she was not realizing how weary she was growing. Her mettle was up, and she was working on her nerve. It was a mercy with all she had before her that she was well and strong, and fresh from gymnasium and basketball training. It would take all her strength before she was done.
She emerged from the parlor twenty minutes later triumphant, with a number of things that she was sure would be needed. She went to work at the blankets with vigor, rubbing and pulling away at the scorched place until it was almost obliterated. Did Carey smoke in his sleep she wondered, or did he have guests that did? How dreadful that Carey had come to this, and she away at college improving herself and complacently expecting to make her mark in the world!