Any lady who thinks of trying a country residence, should see that it possess a small brick oven, for "home-made" bread ought always to be considered indispensable in the country. We did not discover that our new home was without one till after we entered it. We were laughed at by our landlord when we mentioned our want of this convenience.
"Why!" cried he, "there is a baker's shop not five minutes walk from the house."
"Never mind," said I, "how near the baker's shop may be; we mean to have all our bread made at home. It will be, we are sure, better to do so, both on the score of health and economy."
"But I really," said the gentleman, "cannot afford to build you an oven; it would cost me $100 at the least."
At this, H., who had resided for a short time in a house where the bread was made at home, laughed, and said, "Really, Mr. L., you need not fear that we wish to put you to so much expense, and it is perhaps but fair that we should meet you half-way in the matter; so if you will find labor we will find materials: or reverse it, if you please."
Mr. L. remembered that he had in some outhouse a quantity of "fire bricks," and it was arranged that we should pay for the labor of constructing a three-peck oven. This occasioned on our part an outlay of $10, and this small sum was the source of considerable saving to us yearly.
We were more fortunate with our bread than with our butter-making, for Mary was a capital baker; our bread was always made from the best flour. We all liked it much better than bakers' bread, and it was much more nourishing. Indeed, when I was once in Kent during "hopping," and saw that the women who resided in the neighborhood always gave up half a day's work weekly for the purpose of going home to bake, I used to wonder why they did not purchase their bread from a baker in the village. I was informed by one of them to whom I put the question, "Lord, ma'am, we could not work on bakers' bread, we should be half-starved; it's got no heart in it."
To a small family, perhaps, the saving might not be considered an object, but any one who has for a few months been accustomed to eat home-made bread, would be sorry to have recourse to the baker's; the loaves purchased are usually spongy the first day, and dry and harsh the second. It is not only that other ingredients than flour, yeast, and water are mixed in the dough, but it is seldom sufficiently baked; bread well made at home and baked in a brick oven for a proper time, is as good at the end of a week as it is the second day.
I have heard several persons say, "I should like home-made bread if it were baked every day, but I don't like eating stale bread four or five days out of the seven." If they stayed with us a day or two, they became convinced that bread which had been made three or four days did not deserve the epithet of "stale."
I will now proceed to show the reader how much flour was consumed in our household, consisting of thirteen persons.