And, when they counted up the receipts that night, they found that, deducting all expenses, there would be five dollars profit!
"And the McGregor ranch to bake for!" crowed Elizabeth, joyously. "Ruth, I plainly see land ahead!"
"I'm so relieved!" sighed Ruth, "But Elizabeth, are you sure you can manage the pudding?"
"'In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such word as fail', little sister," laughed Elizabeth. "Of course I can bake--or boil--or steam a pudding as well as a born Britisher! In fact, being an American citizen, I don't see why I can't make even a better one. Let me take a look at that old cook-book of mother's."
All the next day they baked for the McGregor ranch, besides boiling the pudding for the Englishman. Elizabeth declared she wanted him to try it before he paid for it, but after one glance and a hearty sniff, he decided to pay in advance the two dollars and fifty cents which Elizabeth had figured out as a fair price.
That it was satisfactory was fully proven when he returned for the next baking, with orders for half-dozen more.
"I poured brandy over it and set it afire, like they do in England," he said. "And every bloomin' puncher that tasted it is wild for more! They call it 'The Perishin' Martyr Pie.' O, it's made a hit, all right."
After that there was quite a run on puddings, and hardly a day passed that the girls did not make a "Perishin' Martyr Pie"--a name that tickled them immensely. Even the Babe learned to mix the batter, and Roy declared he was quite an expert at boiling martyrs.
Money flowed into the little green pasteboard box, so that now there was plenty of company for the lonely thirty-five cents it had originally contained, when Ruth rashly decided she would pay Maudie Pratt for the lost diamond ring. It must be admitted that as the money tide rose Ruth's spirits fell.
"O, it would be so lovely if we were earning it for ourselves," she lamented. "Think of the things we could buy: If we could only give it to mother to help with the living I should be perfectly satisfied--but to go and hand it over to Maudie Pratt for a ring she just made me put on--"