We had each taken a second cup of tea, when Jack looked up and said, "Do you realize, my dear, that this canning and jellying process is only just started for the season in Podunk? I find that our Fourth of July not only proclaims American independence but also the proper time for making currant jelly, and so, unless Nature plays us false, the same ordeal must be repeated, with only the difference that 'currant' will be written on the label instead of 'strawberry.' And still another repetition, when raspberries are ripe and blackberries grow sweet and luscious. Again when the huckleberry bushes give up their treasures, shadowing forth a winter supply for pies. Then come the peaches, pears and plums, followed by apples, grapes and quinces. Between times, lest the hand forgets its cunning, there are peas, corn, beets and tomatoes to be rescued for future use. And the season ends with a pickling tournament.
"It hardly seems creditable, but from here to Podunk Hollow, a distance of less than two miles, and only sparsely settled, I find by actual count that there are thousands of cans of fruit and hundreds of glasses of jelly prepared every season. From 'strawberry time'—indeed some ambitious housekeepers start in with rhubarb in April—until the last luckless green tomato is snatched from Jack Frost, there is a mad rush on the part of the farmer's wife to keep apace with Nature and to take care of her bounties with a thrifty hand."
By this time Jack was ready for a second helping of gingerbread and proceeded. "Don't you see, my dear, that this is an awful waste of muscular energy and stove fuel. Don't you see that consolidation and coöperation at just this point would emancipate these women quite as much as the telephone and the rural delivery?
"Furthermore, I believe there is fruit enough that goes to waste every year, which, if rescued, would not only pay for the running of a community kitchen, but also give a handsome bonus for civic beautifying. It is my firm faith that Podunk can earn the foundations of a fine library, within the next three years, by simply saving the waste of fruit and vegetables within her own borders. She has a market already established at the summer colony of Bide-a-wee."
The third piece of gingerbread gave Jack the courage to make a clean breast of everything, and to confess that he had called a meeting and made all the necessary arrangements to start a community kitchen for canning and preserving, to be ready this season for the currant crop.
Jack always persists that my impulsive opposition is his most helpful ally, so I never feel hindered in giving it. But I said "You have surely never looked at this problem from the psychological standpoint. You have never calculated the personal pride of every housewife in her own handiwork, done in her own way, the way tradition has made sacred to her. Eliminate the personal touch from half the preserve closets of Podunk and you rob them of their glory and half of their flavor. There are some things that cannot be consolidated and coöperated and this is one of them. Why! Mrs. Patterson would be inconsolably wretched, if she thought a jar of peaches would ever stand in her cellar that did not adhere to the formula of one and three-quarters pints of sugar to three pints of water. Now Mrs. Smith is equally loyal to one and one-half parts sugar to three parts water."
"And as for jelly making, it has a hedge about it as conservative and invulnerable as a Chinese wall. Instance, our beloved Mrs. Thornton. That splendid spirit of housewifely excellence that we have always admired in her would be wholly inundated and wrecked, if she ever had to set before us, on her own tea-table, a glass of jelly that had been made by heating the currants before they were crushed, and straining the juice through cheesecloth instead of flannel. To Mrs. Thornton there is but one right way, the cold and flannel process.
"Even I, Jack, dear, must own up to feeling an unpleasant sensation down my spinal column, and a vexatious agitation in my mind, whenever I see jelly boil more than five minutes after the sugar is added. Nay, my Worthy Wisdom, let me entreat you to carefully consider ere you intrude upon the sacred precincts of jelly-making with any ruthless tread.
"As for pickling, it is an established fact that every housewife pickles to suit the taste of her family and her rule lies in the palate of said family. You know that the Joneses are always strong on the onion flavor, while the Millers emphasize cinnamon and allspice! Fancy consolidating these flavors into a blend and expect either family to be contented and happy.
"Worthy as your Community Kitchen idea is in its inception, I fear it is doomed to failure. It uproots too many of the 'eternals' of housekeeping."