“Welcome” had been painted on twenty different boards or bits of white cloth and paper, and nailed here and there on the trees that lined the rough wood-road; the strains of an orchestra, formed of a guitar, banjo, castanets, Chinese fiddle, and tin cans, greeted them from a distance, but were properly allowed to die away in silence when the guest neared the tents. Everything wore a new and smiling face, and Elsie never came more dangerously near being squeezed to death.
Elsie, in the prettiest of gingham dresses, and her cloud of golden hair braided in two funny little pugs to keep it out of the dust; Elsie, with a wide hat that shaded her face, already a little tanned and burned, no longer colourless; Elsie, with no lines of pain in her pretty forehead, and the hollow ring gone from her voice; Elsie, who jumped over the wheel of the wagon, and hugged her huggers with the strength of a young bear! It was too good to believe, and nobody did quite believe it for days.
At three o’clock the happiest party in the world assembled at the rough dining-table under the sycamore-trees.
Elsie beamed upon the feast from the high-backed manzanita chair, a faint colour in her cheeks, and starry prisms of light in a pair of eyes that had not sparkled for many a weary month. Hop Yet smiled a trifle himself, wore his cap with a red button on the top to wait upon the table, and ministered to the hungry people with more interest and alacrity than he had shown since he had been dragged from Santa Barbara, his Joss, and his nightly game of fantan. And such a dinner as he had prepared in honour of the occasion!—longer by four courses than usual, and each person was allowed two plates in the course of the meal.
BILL OF FARE FOR HER MAJESTY’S DINNER
Quail Soup. | Crackers. |
Chili Colorado. | |
(Mutton stew, inSpanish style, with Chili peppers, tomatoes, and onions.) | |
Cold Boiled Ham. | Fried Potatoes. |
Apples and Onionsstewed together. | |
Ginger-snaps. | Pickles. |
Peaches, Apricots,and Nectarines. | |
California Nuts andRaisins. | Coffee. |
And last of all, a surprise of Bell’s, flapjacks, long teased for by the boys, and prepared and fried by her own hands while the merry party waited at table, to get them smoking hot.
She came in flushed with heat and pride, the prettiest cook anybody ever saw, with her hair bobbed up out of the way and doing its best to escape, a high-necked white apron, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and an insinuating spot of batter in the dimple of her left cheek.
“There!” she cried, joyfully, as she deposited a heaping plate in front of her mother, and set the tin can of maple syrup by its side. “Begin on those, and I’ll fry like lightning on two griddles to keep up with you,” and she rushed to the brush kitchen to turn her next instalments that had been left to brown. Hop Yet had retired to a distant spot by the brook, and was washing dish-towels. All Chinese cooks are alike in their horror of a woman in the kitchen; but some of them will unbend so far as to allow her to amuse herself so long as they are not required to witness the disagreeable spectacle.