Constant to my vow of discretion in all things pertaining to domestic tribulations, I said never a word to the other members of the smitten household of what menaced them. The congestion was the more serious, inasmuch as there was not a baker within twenty miles, and we baked fresh bread and rolls every day. I was in poor physical case for culinary enterprise, for one of the constitutional headaches which I had inherited from both parents had warned me of its approach; I ought to keep quiet and discourage the advance. Instead of which, I girded up the loins of my spirit and concluded that there could hardly be a more propitious opportunity for trying Mrs. Eggleston’s bread recipe. Since a knowledge of practical bread-making was one of life’s stringent necessities in this latitude, “better sune than syne.”
I set the sponge at noon, in pursuance of directions laid down so explicitly that a novice with a headache that was by now a fixed fact, could not err therein. I could not sit up to supper for the blinding pain. Alice was taking that meal, and was to spend the evening with a friend, and my husband had a business call in his study. No one would be privy to the appeal I meditated making to my tyrant. I sent for her, and ordered her to bring to my room the sponge I had left in a secluded corner of the dining-room. When it came, I bade her bring kneading-tray and flour. These set in order on the table, I called her attention to the hopeful and enticing foaming condition of the sponge, and assured her that no evil could befall the dough if she were to knead in the flour and prepare the mass for the night’s working, there under my eyes.
She planted herself in the middle of the floor and surveyed me mournfully—a sphinx done in chocolate.
“I suttinly is mighty sorry for you, Miss Virginny, an’ I’d do anyt’ing what I could do fur to help you out o’ you’ trouble. But thar ain’t no manner o’ use in my layin’ my han’ to that ar’ dough. It wouldn’t never rise, not ‘tell the jedgment-day. It would be temptin’ Providence, out and out. When a body’s han’ is out, it’s out for good and all! I done do my best to make you onderstan’ what’s happen’ to me, an’ angels couldn’t do no mo’! Lord ’a’ mercy! what is you goin’ to do?”
I had jumped up and belted in my dressing-gown, rushed to the wash-stand, and washed my hands furiously. Without a syllable I tackled the sponge, measured and worked in the flour, and fell to kneading it in a blind rage. Pretty soon my strength flagged; the pain in my temples and back of the eyes beat me faint. To get a better purchase on the stiffened mass, I set the tray down on the floor and knelt over it. That bread had to be made if I perished in the attempt.
The chocolate-colored sphinx surveyed me sorrowfully, without stirring an inch from her place on the hearth-rug.
Neither of us heard the door open, softly and cautiously, lest the noise might disturb my slumbers. Both of us started violently at the voice that said:
“What is the meaning of this?”
I sat up on my knees and faced the speaker, essaying a miserable imitation of a laugh.