Mrs. Power’s broad back was to the young lady, as she danced gleefully into the kitchen, and it remained toward her, with one ear just slightly turned in her direction, all the time she was speaking.
Mrs. Power was busy at the moment removing the fat from a large vessel full of cold soup. She has some pepper and salt, and nutmegs and other flavoring ingredients on the table beside her, and when Polly’s speech came to a conclusion she took up the pepper canister and certainly flavored the soup with a very severe dose.
“If I was you, I’d get out of the hot kitchen, child—I’m busy, and not attending to a word you’re talking about.”
No answer could have been more exasperating to Polly. She, too, had her temper, and had no idea of being put down by twenty Mrs. Powers.
“Take care, you’re spoiling the soup,” she said. “That’s twice too much pepper—and oh, what a lot of salt! Don’t you know, Mrs. Power, that it’s very wicked to waste good food in that way—it is, really, perhaps you did not think of it in that light, but it is. I’m afraid you can’t ever have attended any cookery classes, Mrs. Power, or you’d know better than to put all that pepper into that much soup. Why it ought to be—it ought to be—let me see, I think it’s the tenth of an ounce to half a gallon of soup. I’m not quite sure, but I’ll look up the cookery lectures and let you know. Now, where’s the key of the store-room—we’d better set to work for the morning is going on, and I have a great deal on my hands. Where’s the key of the store-room, Mrs. Power?”
“There’s only one key that I know much about at the present moment,” replied the exasperated cook, “and that’s the key of the kitchen-door; come, child—I’m going to put you on the other side of it;” and so saying, before Polly was in the least aware of her intention, she was caught up in Mrs. Power’s stalwart arms, and placed on the flags outside the kitchen, while the door was boldly locked in her face.
This was really a check, almost a checkmate, and for a time Polly quite shook with fury, but after a little she sufficiently recovered herself to reflect that the reins of authority had not yet been absolutely placed in her hands, and it might be wisest for her to keep this defeat to herself.
“Poor old Power! you won’t be here long when I’m housekeeper,” reflected Polly. “It would not be right—you’re not at all a good servant. Why, I know twice as much already as you do.”
She went slowly upstairs, and going to the school-room, where the girls were all busying themselves in different fashions, sat down by her own special desk, and made herself very busy dividing a long old-fashioned rosewood box into several compartments by means of stout cardboard divisions. She was really a clever little maid in her own way, and the box when finished looked quite neat. Each division was labeled, and Polly’s cheeks glowed as she surveyed her handiwork.
“What a very queer box,” said Dolly, coming forward. “What are you so long about, Poll Parrot? And, oh, what red cheeks!”