“Why not?” he asked when Max objected that they might spoil it. “The stuff will spoil anyway; if we can save it, won’t it be so much to the good?”
“Yes. But can we do it right?”
“No matter. She makes the best marmalade in town, the neighbors say. They know, for she gives away a lot. She’s started this right; if we finish it up half right it will do for us boobs to eat on bread and butter, won’t it?”
“Surely, and be much better than we deserve probably.”
The dishes finished, Sydney found Mrs. Schmitz’s recipe book and the two studied the complicated directions. It was a three days’ process, and they could not make up their minds whether this was the second or third day, so little idea had they of the “looks of the mess.” But they acted on the latter inference.
“Let’s do it today and get it over with,” Sydney, the prompt, suggested.
“Very well. Tell me what to do.”
Not without a little show of importance Sydney bustled about, giving orders, looking up the great preserving kettle, and searching for such materials as he judged were not already put together.
Max minded this not in the least. He had the soul of the true artist, who is always too deeply engrossed in his work to notice what others are doing, or saying of him. Over and over he read the recipe, thinking closely, and once or twice correcting Sydney himself in his interpretation.