“Well Livia, this is too bad that you’re laid up. Have you had any breakfast yet?”
“Lem did bring me in some, but I couldn’t eat,” she said.
“A man’s cooking! It wouldn’t be expected of you. I’ll get something for you.”
The kitchen was not the sight to please the eye of a housekeeper. Lemuel and Rose had made a shift at cooking but had made no attempt at cleaning up. Dishes were piled high on every available space of the table. The floor was slippery with grease. The frying pan with bits of what had been intended for the patient’s breakfast was on the back of the stove. Eliza sniffed at it. Salt pork! Scarcely a tempting breakfast for an invalid.
She prepared toast with an egg and a cup of tea. The neighboring women had been kind, but they had their families and households to see to, and had not been able to accomplish all they wished.
When the breakfast was disposed of, Eliza cleared away the accumulation of dishes. She pressed Rose into service. She put the house into some semblance of order in the very few hours she had and prepared dinner for Lemuel Burtsch. She knew what his meals must have been if he had had the preparation of them himself. She was a slow, deliberate worker. She could not rush about and do much in a little time. But she was not irritating in her efforts. Her serene, calm way soothed Olivia.
Rose was of little help. She whined and cried when matters went askew. Mrs. Burtsch worried about the child’s doing without her meals. Altogether Rose was of little value in the house.
“Does Rose help you? Is there anything she can do?” Eliza asked Lemuel as he sat at the dinner table. He looked about bewildered. He had never been the head of his own house, and now with his wife sick, he was like a canoe with the paddle gone.
“She hain’t much good. She’s not very old yet Miss Eliza, and her mother always calculated not to make her work until she was considerable older.”
“She’s really too much of a baby yet to help anyone. If she is no help, I’ll take her home with me and take care of her until Olivia gets around, or until you can find a good woman.”