Having seen the children start for school, Grandma Harden waddled back into the house.
"Helen," she called to the mother of Nat and Weezie, "I'm going into the kitchen and bake a cake, as long as Lizzie is down in the laundry."
"All right, Mother!" answered Mrs. Marden. She called the jolly, fat old lady "Mother," though, really, she was only a mother-in-law. However, that made no difference. "But don't tire yourself out, Mother," she warned.
"I'll take Racky into the kitchen with me," said old Mrs. Marden. "I'll sit on that, and mend some stockings while I'm waiting for the cake to bake. I like to watch my cakes so they won't burn."
Now, lest you wonder who Racky was, that fat, Grandma Marden was going to sit on in the kitchen, while she made a cake, I shall tell you. It was an old rocking chair! And it was a very strange, peculiar old rocking chair, as you shall, very soon, find out for yourself.
Humming a little tune, Grandma Marden carried her favorite, old rocking chair to the kitchen. She had owned this chair for many years, since the time she kept house for herself, before she went to live with her son and his family.
The chair was painted brown, and it had a deep, thick, soft cushion on the seat and another cushion on the back. Some buttons on the back cushion made it look like a face.
"Now I'll just mix up—let me see—I guess I'll make a chocolate cake this time," murmured the old lady, "I'll just mix it up and pop it into the oven. Then, while it's baking, I'll sit and rock and mend stockings."
She set the chair in a corner, near the door leading down the cellar steps into the laundry, where Lizzie, the maid, was splashing about in the water with the Monday batch of clothes.
Into a brown bowl Grandma Marden put sugar, flour, milk, baking powder and whatever else goes into a cake. She stirred the batter up until it was frothy and foamy, and then she poured it into shallow tins which she set into the oven of the new gas stove.