As there were no fires, Aubrey and Mr. Close made one in the furnace; Mary and the grocer's boy—or rather the grocer's boy under Mary's direction—built one in the range, while I set the woman to sweeping one floor for the carpenters to begin on.
Suddenly I heard hurried feet running up the cellar stairs. The water man had turned the water on from the street, and it was gaily pouring into the cellar. Mr. Close is a fat man, but he ran like a jack-rabbit to that water main, and shut it off. Then without daring to face—Mary, he started to town for a plumber.
He had not been gone half an hour when the water-back blew up. Fortunately, no one was in the kitchen at the time, but the cleaning woman turned from black to a dirty gray with fright, and without further ado went home. I can't say that I blamed her. Aubrey was busy putting out the furnace fire and bailing out the cellar, so he did not know of that defection.
However, a culmination of such calamities, instead of smiting me to the earth, aroused every drop of fighting blood in my whole body.
I went out on the porch to think it over, and as I thought I began to laugh. I laughed until Aubrey heard me and thought I was crying. He came hurrying out, with a face full of anxiety, saying, before he saw me:
"Never mind, dear! I know this is hard on you, but—"
"Well, I'll be—!"
Both of those remarks were Aubrey's. He was much relieved, however, to discover that I was not cast down by all these disasters. In fact, our moving partook more of the delights of camping out than orthodox housekeeping, and I soon discovered expedients.
The only fire which did not bid fair to blow our heads off was one in the grate in the hall. On this we boiled water and made tea, and for that first luncheon we satisfied ourselves with sardines and devilled ham sandwiches. But as we were obliged to cook on that grate for six days, I may as well record now that we grew into expert cooks, attempting eggs in all forms, batter-cakes, hoe cakes, fried mush, bacon, ham, chops, toast, and fried potatoes,—in fact, no woman knows how much she can cook on a common little hard coal grate until three hungry people are dependent on it for three meals a day.
We supplemented this by the chafing-dish. Aubrey says that I should say the grate fire supplemented the chafing-dish, for nobody knows what can be done with one—in real, urgent housekeeping, I mean, such as ours, until one has tried. It makes a perfect double boiler, and as for a bain Marie, well, I used to cream potatoes in the top part, and when they were all done but the simmering of the cream to thicken it, I used to put tomatoes in the bottom part to stew, and put the potato part back on the tomatoes for a cover and to keep hot. Did you ever try that?