"Oh, dear me, mum! you've forgot the drafts is shut," said Midge, just as if I had ever thought of drafts, or supposed there was any craft or mystery about them.
Midge, however, proceeded to open certain mysterious slides, whereat the stove gave a purr of satisfaction, which soon broadened into a roar.
"That will do splendidly," said I; "and now, Midge, go and get the potatoes and turnips, peel them, and have them ready."
The stove roared away merrily, and I went on with my china-closet arrangements, laying out a dessert, till suddenly I smelled a smell of burning. I went into the kitchen, and found the stove raging like a great red dragon, and the top glowing hot, and, opening the oven door, a puff of burning fume flew in my face.
"Oh, Midge, Midge," I cried, "what is the matter? The turkey is all burning up!" and Midge came running from the cellar.
"Why, mother shuts them slides part up, when the fire gets agoing too fast," said Midge—"so;" and Midge manipulated the mysterious slides, and the roaring monster grew calm.
But my turkey needed to be turned, and I essayed to turn him—a thing which seems the simplest thing in life, till one tries it and becomes convinced of the utter depravity of matter. The wretched contrary bird of evil! how he slipped and slid, and went every way but the right way! How I wrestled with him, getting hot and combative, outwardly and inwardly! How I burned my hand on the oven door, till finally over he flounced, spattering hot gravy all over my hand and the front breadth of my dress. I had a view then that I never had had before of the amount of Christian patience needed by a cook. I really got into quite a vengeful state of feeling with the monster, and shut the oven door with a malignant bang, as Hensel and Gretel did when they burned the old witch in the fairy story.
But now came the improvising of my dessert! I had projected an elegant arrangement of boiled custard, with sponge-cake at the bottom, and feathery snow of egg-froth on top—a showy composition, which, when displayed in a high cut-glass dish, strikingly ornaments the table.
I felt entirely equal to boiled custard. I had seen Mary make it dozens of times. I knew just how many eggs went to the quart of milk, and that it must be stirred gently all the time, in a kettle of boiling water, till the golden moment of projection arrived. So I stirred and stirred, with a hot face and smarting hands; for the burned places burned so much worse in the heat as to send a doubt through my mind whether I ever should have grace enough to be a martyr at the stake, for any faith or cause whatever.