The way is to think in the first place of every ingredient and utensil needed, then to set the sugar, flour, spice, salt, lard, butter, milk, eggs, cream, molasses, flavoring, sieves, spoons, egg-beaters, cups, strainers, rolling-pins, and pans, in a convenient spot, so that you do not have to stop at some important step in the process, while you go to hunt for a necessary thing which has disappeared or been forgotten.
Mother has often told me of a funny time she had when she was quite a young housekeeper, afflicted with a borrowing neighbor. This lady seldom had anything of her own at hand when it was wanted, so she depended upon the obliging disposition of her friends.
One day my mother put on her large housekeeping apron and stepped across the yard to her outdoor kitchen. The kitchens in Kentucky were never a part of the house, but always at a little distance from it, in a separate building.
"Aunt Phyllis," said my mother to the cook, who was browning coffee grains in a skillet over the fire, "I thought I told you that I was coming here to make pound cake and cream pies this morning. Why is nothing ready?"
"La, me, Miss Emmeline!" replied Aunt Phyllis. "Miss 'Tilda Jenkins done carried off every pie pan and rolling-pin and pastry-board, and borrowed all de eggs and cream fo' herself. Her bakin' isn't mo'n begun."
This was a high-handed proceeding, but nothing could be done in the case. It was Mrs. Jenkins' habit, and mother had always been so amiable about it that the servants, who were easygoing, never troubled themselves to ask the mistress, but lent the inconvenient borrower whatever she desired.
Sometimes just as we were going to church, I was too little at the time to remember, mother said that a small black boy with very white teeth and a very woolly head, would pop up at her chamber door, exclaiming,
"Howdy, Miss Emmeline. Miss 'Tilda done sent me to borrow yo' Prayer-book. She goin' to church to-day herself."
Or, of a summer evening, her maid would appear with a modest request for Miss Emmeline's lace shawl and red satin fan; Miss 'Tilda wanted to make a call and had nothing to wear.
All this, I think, made mother perfectly set against our ever borrowing so much as a slatepencil or a pin. We were always to use our own things or go without. I never had a sister, but cousins often spent months at the house, and were in and out of my room in the freest way, forever bringing me their gloves to mend or their ties to clean, as cousins will.