But the one who cried the most, and didn't know what to do with himself when he heard such weeping and wailing over his wife, was the general dealer.
None knew the real worth of that kitchen wench, said he.
And so it was Toad who now superintended everything, and both dispensed the stores and made provision for the household.
She drove all the hired cooks and pancake rollers out of the house--they were only eating her master out of house and home, she said.
The lefser were laid together without any sirup between them, and she gave out fat instead of butter. She distributed it herself, and packed it up in their Nistebommers4.
Never had the general dealer known the heavy household business disposed of so quickly as it was that year. He was quite astonished.
And he was really dumfoundered when Toad took him up into the store-room, and showed him how little had been consumed, and how the cured shoulders of mutton and the hams hung down from the rafters in rows and rows.
"So long as things went on as they were going now," said he, "she should have the control of the household like mother herself," for his wife was now bedridden in her room upstairs.
And at Yule-tide Toad baked and roasted, and cut things down so finely that her fellow-servants were almost driven to chew their wooden spoons and gnaw bones.
But such fat calves, and such ribs of pork, and such lefser filled with both sirup and butter, and such mölje5 and splendid fare for the guests that came to his house at Christmas-time the general dealer had never seen before.