“It looks small,” Elena said; “but all the wool that makes our dresses is woven there. Our silk webs we bring from outside, though we have a small silk farm; but we raise all our own wool. The silk we use for sashes and for hosiery. We send out silk hose, lace, and carved olive-wood.
“And now, my dear, you are to see the folly of individual domestic cooking, and the wisdom of having public kitchens, if they are properly conducted. And at this moment you see coming to meet us one of the chief supports of our system. If we had not a lady of good taste and administrative capacity to matronize our kitchens, they might deteriorate, or fail. If even such a lady were always there, she might sometimes grow weary and careless; but with a short term for each, there is always the sense of novelty and emulation to keep them up to the mark.”
It was a very pleasant presentation of a lady who stood in the door to receive them, with a square of white net tied, turban-wise, around her head, and a snowy bib-apron over her cotton dress.
“You do not remember me,” she said, smiling at Tacita’s intent gaze. “No wonder. You saw so many strangers last night. Besides, my hair was not covered then, and I wore a silk dress.”
It was one of the most accomplished ladies whom she had met at the assembly.
They went through the buildings that constituted almost a village. It was the very paradise of a cooking colony, in plenty order, and cleanliness. There were no silver saucepans tied with rose-colored ribbons; but Marie Antoinette might have gone there and made a cup of chocolate or cooked an omelette, without soiling her fair fingers, or her dainty high-heeled shoes.
The economy, too, was perfect. There were central roasting fires on elevated hearths, with a tunnel-shaped sheet-iron chimney let down over them where a circle of tin kitchens and spits could surround them, losing no heat; and there were lines of charcoal furnaces set in tiles under great sheet-iron hoods.
“We do not waste a bit of coal as large as a walnut, nor a twig of wood that a bird could alight on,” the Directress said. “For the food, not the least important part of our establishment is the fragment kitchen.”
“Elena, when shall I come and learn to cook something?” Tacita asked as they went away.
Her friend laughed. “You find it fascinating, then! I shall have to make you begin at school. You did not see the preparatory department there. It is a sight, when they are busy for an hour every morning, chopping meat, picking raisins, husking corn, shelling peas, picking over coffee or rice, doing, in short, any preparatory work that the cooks might need. Sometimes they have half an hour of such work in the afternoon. It would, perhaps, interest you more than to see them at their books.”