“But, Cousin Keith,” said Brooke, as soon as she could be heard, and struggling not to laugh at the outpouring of words, which, when the farm was the topic, she soon found flowed as steadily as Niagara, “I do not expect to keep female help from the city.”
“Oh, you relied on getting them from about here, then? Well, I’m afraid you’ll find it a scant market, unless you’ll put up with coloured; the American girls won’t live out in families where they set them at separate tables, and I don’t blame them. There’s old Mrs. Peck, she sometimes accommodates for a month or so, as a working housekeeper in confinement cases, but she is old-fashioned New England and wouldn’t take to city ways. Why, she would think her soul lost if she used prepared flour for her buckwheat cakes instead of setting them with yeast, and she sticks to soda and cream of tartar, which she understands the workings of, for all baking, as she claims that baking powder isn’t plain and above board and so is to be avoided, though I must say her tea biscuits took the prize over mine at the Gordon fair.”
Once again Brooke shook her head, this time not trying to suppress her laughter,—“I have no intention of keeping any household help whatsoever,” she managed to say at last.
Miss Keith stopped short with a gasp, as if a pail of ice-water had been poured upon her head, and then said: “No hired help! then who is to do the cooking, and what will you eat? If this was Stonebridge, you could get table board at the Inn, though it is expensive, and the people that often stop here in driving, to buy my fresh cake, complain that it isn’t satisfactory.”
“Cousin Keith, you must take me seriously. I do not think you understood the letter that I wrote, telling you we were coming here. I am going to do the work; fifty dollars a month is our present income, and I do not mean to touch the little principal we have, but keep it in case of accident,—at least until I am in working order and have devised some plan for earning more. All I hope to do is to get some good woman, like your Mrs. Peck, to come here for a few weeks and teach me how to cook plain food and be economical, for it is the other part that I understand, and learned at Lucy Dean’s cooking class, to make cake, and candy, and all the little supper dishes in a chafing-dish. Adam has already promised that he will make the fires and do the heavy things, so you see I’m not so badly off after all. You mustn’t look so discouragingly at me, Cousin Keith. You see the only way for us to earn money in the very beginning is by not spending it.”
Instantly Keith West’s whole attitude changed. She not only ceased making objections, but the distance that she herself had, in her imagination, forced to be kept between herself and her kin disappeared, and practical suggestions took the place of obstruction.
“That minute you spoke and looked just like your Grandma West, when the outlying members of the family tried to argue her into giving up, and going down to winter at Gilead, after grandpa died. Gentle, but set as fast as bricks in Portland cement. Of course you can do the work for a while anyway (I did the same, and more too, at your age), if you can only get the knack of turning it off, and I don’t know of any one more likely to help you out than Mrs. Peck. That is, unless I postpone my going for a couple of weeks, and do it myself,” and Miss Keith paused with an eager look that said she would ask nothing better; for the advent of the family, instead of making her feel out of place, had already made her reasons for the change grow vague and hazy, and the departure itself seemed not an escape, but more like an eviction.
“You are very kind to offer, but that is impossible, you know,” answered Brooke. “In the last letter you wrote me, regretting the delay, you said that you must absolutely leave on the 12th, and that will be to-morrow. It is better too that we should begin at once before Adam and I grow lazy from seeing you take the lead and being accustomed to our liberty. How much does Mrs. Peck charge, and where does she live? I think I had best go to see her to-day while you are here to be with mother.”
Thus Miss Keith, by no act but her own, had literally closed the door upon herself, which fact she was clear-sighted enough to recognize, and bore herself accordingly, making haste to reply: “Mrs. Peck has six dollars a week when she cares for mother, child, and the house, but when it is just ‘accommodating’ with a grown girl to help out and take steps, she has three, and must be called for and returned home. She would jump at the chance to come here for three dollars, for there have been next to no births this winter, and she has either been at home most of the time, or else at her daughter’s, where she is kept busy and, of course, gets no pay. She is very intimate with Mrs. Enoch Fenton, who lives just round the turn on the Windy Hill road, not half a mile from here. You can go up there for a walk after dinner, as I suppose you’d rather settle your own business. No, you can’t go this morning, no one disturbs Mrs. Fenton before dinner; you see, situated as she is, she must have all the forenoon uninterrupted for her work—she manages wonderfully, but if any one comes in before it is done, it upsets her for the day. Why, the neighbours would no more think of calling on Mrs. Fenton in the morning than they would of visiting the minister on Saturday night!”