Still kitchen policing. Yesterday I thought I had pulled some job when I peeled an ash can full of potatoes, but that was nothing. To-day I got a better one. I had to peel the same amount of potatoes, only they were in a washboiler this time. Yes, right off the fire. I can’t see why the Government has to serve potatoes with the jackets off anyway. Why don’t they let the men peel them? They are just as well able to do it as we are. If some one ever wants to invent a choice way of punishing refractory prisoners in jail I suggest they send said refractors into the kitchen and give them the gentle job of peeling hot potatoes, by the washboilerful.
I have a side partner on the kitchen police. His name is O’Flynn and he runs into even better luck than I do. To-day he shared the job of peeling “hot ones” with me. Yesterday while I had the little task of peeling ’em raw, he was handed the nice detail of attending to twelve pounds of onions; a tearful occasion, until some one with a conscience suggested that he get a bucket of water and peel them under water. O’Flynn got the water, with the remark that if he waited just a little longer the onion pan would have been full of tears, which he assumed would have served just as well.
O’Flynn is kitchen policing because he tried to come into the barracks after taps. Lights out at ten and O’Flynn arrived about 2 G.M. He avoided the fire-guard successfully and went around to the back of the barracks. There he jimmied a window with his pocket knife and got it opened, only to have it fall on his neck when he was about half-way in. By way of exercise he put his elbow through it. Then to add to the situation he found himself in the darkened mess hall instead of the dormitory, and the noise he made when he knocked over several benches naturally grated on the Sergeant’s nerves. Said Sergeant arrived in the hall in his union suit about the time O’Flynn had untangled himself, and, after cussing him out to perfection, he handed the Irishman a week at kitchen policing.
“And now,” said O’Flynn, “t’ next time I come in through t’ windey, I’ll stay out.”
A week of this and I’ll be able to qualify as a first rate housekeeper for a lumber camp. Already I can lay down a few very necessary rules which the average housewife will appreciate, as for instance:—
1. Never take it for granted that a man has only one appetite. We have two hundred and seventy men here, but they carry around an aggregate of six hundred appetites.
2. Never plunge your hands into an ash can full of greasy water without first removing your wrist watch.
3. Never attempt to mop up after your men folk. Just turn the hose on, lash the nozzle to a convenient table leg and walk away and forget about it.
4. In carrying out a pan full of hot ashes never grab the handle. Thrust a stick through it, it saves the temper and the floor.
5. Never let any one kid you into trying to take the black off the kitchen pans with sapolio, rather throw the pans away.