Caroline is doing the work very well for us. I am the envy of all the people we know because I can boast a really, truly Kentucky Bluegrass cook. She is awfully funny about New York, but I think is beginning to like it very well. Gas scared her nearly to death for a few days. She seemed to think there was some kind of magic in it, and I had to light the stove for her a million times a day. I found she was just keeping it burning all the time to save matches, and when I told her to turn it out if she wasn't using it, she almost cried, because, it seems, she was afraid of the pop it gave when she lit it. Then she began calling on me every time she wanted to light it, but after a week or so of such humoring she has learned to do it herself, and now everything is going along swimmingly. I find she is saving the burnt matches, though, to make some kind of bracket with—something she saw back in "Kaintucky."
I think the greatest shock she ever had was when she found out that in New York you had to pay for onions. "I nebber hearn tell of no sich a place. If'n you ain't made out ter grow none yo'se'f, looks ter me lak some er yo' neighbors mought be ginerous enough to gib yer a han'ful fer seasonin', not fer fryin' or b'ilin'. I wouldn' spec a whole mess er onions as a gif'—but it do seem a shame ter hab ter buy a dash er seasonin'."
She almost got her head knocked off with the dumb-waiter the other day. She thought it was down, and it was up, and she put her head in the shaft to watch for it, all the time giving the most vigorous pulling to the rope. The dumb-waiter descended with great force and hit her squarely on the top of the head. I heard a great bump and flew to the kitchen. "Caroline! Caroline! What is the matter?" I cried. "'Tain't nothin' much, Miss Judy, but it mought 'a' been. That there deaf-and-dumb dining-room servant done biffed me a lick that pretty near knocked a hole in his flo'." "Did it hurt very badly?" "No'm, it didn't ter say hurt none. It jes' dizzified me a leetle. You see, Miss Judy, it jes' hit me on the haid."
Just on the head!
I think Caroline is almost as much afraid of Aunt Mary's disapproval now that the old woman is dead as she was in her lifetime. Whenever she passes the picture I did of Aunt Mary on the back porch of Chatsworth shelling peas, she suddenly gets in a great hurry. She is not as a rule very energetic, but at the sight of Aunt Mary she gets a great move on her. She came in the other day from some jaunt she had been on, it being her afternoon off, and said: "Looks lak wherever I goes folks seem to 'vine I'm from de Souf. I ast a colored gemman how he guessed it an' he said it was my sof' accident what gimme away. I's goin' ter try ter speak mo' Yankeefied an' see if'n I can't pass fer Noo York."
Caroline's first attempt at being Yankeefied was almost fatal. She made friends with some of the white maids in the apartment house, some Scandinavians, and in her endeavor to become New Yorky she swapped recipes with them, and the next morning served for breakfast the result: corn bread with sugar in it! You can picture Kent.
Kent and I are seeing some very pleasant people, but both of us are working very hard. I work every morning at the Art Students' League from 9 to 12. That means I leave the house with Kent. I go to market on the way to the League and get back to luncheon. Sometimes he comes in to luncheon, too, but he is usually too busy. In the afternoon I sew or read or go shopping or to the matinee, always something to do in New York, and then we have dinner at 6:30 and long, delightful evenings together, usually at home; but sometimes we take in a show and sometimes we dine at a restaurant. We have callers in the evening often and also return calls, but Kent is not much of a caller, as you know.
We have company to dinner, too, quite often now that Caroline has found herself. Kent delights in bringing home unexpected company. He has a notion he is still living in Kentucky and that this little two-by-four flat is Chatsworth itself. Caroline is fortunately accustomed to it, but I am afraid she will soon become corrupted by these Scandinavians, who would not put up with it one moment. Of course I don't mind how many companies he brings home, and if we are short on rations I can do like the immortal Mrs. Wiggs and just put a little more water in the soup. This idiosyncrasy of my young husband, however, has taught me to keep a supply of canned soups, asparagus tips, etc., in the store-room. My friends among the young married set tell me they market day by day and never have anything like that on the shelves as it makes the servants wasteful. Maybe it does, but I feel quite safe with Caroline and the canned goods, as she has never yet learned how to use a can-opener.
Please give the learned professor my best love. Kent sends his love to you both. This is such a long letter I am sure it will take two stamps to send it.
Your ever devoted,
Judy Kean Brown.