Said Brother Juniper to himself, "It is a pity that one Brother should always have to be in the kitchen, instead of saying prayers with the rest. Of a surety, now that I am left behind to cook, I will make ready so much food that all the Brothers will have enough for a fortnight, and the cook will have less to do."
So he went with all diligence into the country, and begged several large cooking pots; he got also meat, fowls, eggs, vegetables, and firewood in plenty; then he put all the eatables in the pots to cook, to wit, the fowls with their feathers on, the eggs in their shells, and so with the rest.
After a while the Brothers came back to the home, and one of them going to the kitchen, saw many great pots on an enormous fire; he sat him down and looked on with amazement, but said nothing, watching the care with which Brother Juniper did his cooking, and how he hurried from one pot to the other. Having watched it all with great delight, the Brother left the kitchen, and, finding the other Friars, said to them:
"I have to tell you Brother Juniper is making a marriage feast." But the Brothers took his word as a jest.
Presently Brother Juniper lifted the pots from the fire, and rang the dinner bell. The Brothers sat down to table, and he came into the refectory with his dishes, red-faced with his exertions.
Quoth he, "Eat well, and then let us all go and pray: no one need think of the kitchen for a while; I have cooked enough food for a fortnight."
And Brother Juniper set his stew on the table. But there is not a pig in the whole countryside that would have partaken of it.
Then Juniper, seeing that the Brothers did not eat thereof, said:
"These fowls are strengthening for the brain, and this stew is so good it will refresh the body." But while the Brothers were full of wonder at his simplicity, the Guardian was wroth with the waste of so much good food, and reproved him roughly.
Then Brother Juniper threw himself on the ground and humbly confessed his fault, saying, "I am the worst of men."