As Nathalie snuggled down to sleep that night—she was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open—she felt supremely happy, for she had cooked dinner all by herself. To be sure Dick had growled and claimed the steak was burnt, and Lucille had volunteered the information that Felia never mashed her potatoes that way, but it made no difference to the happy Blue Robin—as Dick had called her—for she was pleased to think that for once in her life she had helped. Of course, Mother had laughed at her blunders, but it was in the old happy way that she used to do when Papa had been with them.
Next morning Nathalie awoke with a start, she smiled drowsily at some passing remembrance of the day before, and then turned over for a beauty nap. Suddenly she sat up with eyes keen and alert; if she was to be maid of all work that day she must get at her job. In fifteen minutes she was creeping stealthily down the kitchen stairs with her shoes in her hands, so as not to awaken her mother.
Oh! the fire was out; that was a difficulty she had not taken into calculation. For a moment she was tempted to crawl up those stairs and leave the fire to the next one who discovered it. Oh, but that would not do at all. She didn’t know how to make a fire, but the words “I can,” made her close her mouth determinedly, and in a few moments clouds of rising smoke attested that she was learning. But alas, the smoke soon drifted into space, and the blaze disappeared in a mass of black paper!
Nathalie’s tears came at this; oh, why would not that wood catch fire? Tried to the soul, she went to the window and gazed through a mist of tears at the dew sparkling on bush and grass. A low, sweet whistling caused her to look up to see Helen, as fresh as a new-blown rose, throwing open the shutters of her room.
Nathalie pursed up her lips and then broke into a “Tru-al-lee!”
Helen glanced down quickly, her eyes lighted, and then came a quick Bob White call that sounded much like “More wet! More wet!” In another instant she was down on the porch calling merrily to her friend, “Oh, Nathalie, how are you this morning?”
Nathalie dimpled cheerily. “Oh, fine!” making a dab at her eyes, “but at my wits’ end trying to make a fire. Will you tell me why it will insist upon going out? It is maddening! I have lighted it six times.”
“What, you making a fire?” said Helen, and then, “Just wait a moment and I will come over and see what is wrong.”
Under Helen’s nimble fingers the brown paper was taken out, the fire-pot filled with loosely wrapped newspaper, small sticks laid crisscross, a few larger ones on top, and then a match applied. Like magic the tiny blue flame sputtered, caught hold of an edge of paper, and then in a few moments a blazing fire was seething and swirling. Nathalie, in exuberant joy, seized her friend and the two girls waltzed merrily around the kitchen.
Of course Nathalie knew how to make toast, but when Helen showed her how to hold it over the coals until it was a golden-brown, butter it while hot, and then cut off the scraggly edges and a rim of crust, she realized that toast-making was indeed a domestic science. Scrambled eggs came next, simple, but deliciously done, as her friend showed her. Then came putting the coffee in the percolator with the water heated beneath by the tiny alcohol lamp, thus drawing from the beverage the most nutritious qualities, Helen declared, without injuring one’s digestion.