"Bon!" says the bird, with a nod, hopping in, "the kitchen is the place to go to. As to those flowers and cherries on the floor, I am not to be cheated by them. They are not good to eat, but only to walk on. I am a bird of culture and society. I know how people live. I am not like that stupid chicken."
For a little yellow chicken, without a sign of tail, had followed the robin in, and was eagerly pecking at the spots in the carpet.
The bird of culture hopped along to the door at the back of the hail, and paused again to reconnoitre. Here a long, narrow corridor ran across, with doors opening into the front rooms, and one into the kitchen, and a second stairway at one end. Three more hops brought the bird to the threshold of the kitchen-door, where a third pause occurred, this one not without trepidation; for here in the great kitchen a woman stood at a table with a pan of potatoes before her. She had washed them, and was now engaged in partially paring them and cutting out any suspicious spots that might be visible on the surfaces. "It takes me to make new potatoes out of old ones!" she said to herself with an air of satisfaction, tossing the potato in in her hand into a pan of cold water.
This woman was large-framed and tall, and over forty years of age. She had a homely, sensible, pleasant, quick-tempered face, and the base of her nose was an hypothenuse. Her dark hair was drawn back and made into a smooth French twist, with a shell comb stuck in the top a little askew. It is hard to fasten one of those twists with the comb quite even, if it has much top to it. This comb had much top. The woman's face shone with washing; she wore a straightly-fitting calico gown and a white linen collar. The gown was newly done up and a little too stiff, and to keep it from soil she had doubled the skirt up in front and pinned it behind, and tied on a large apron. For further safeguard, the sleeves were turned up and pinned to the shoulder by the waistbands. At every movement she made these stiff clothes rattled.
This woman was Miss Betsey Bates. She had lived at Mr. Arnold's when Miss Amy was a young girl, had left when she left, and was now come back to live with her again.
"Just let your water bile," Betsey began, addressing an imaginary audience—"let your water bile, and throw in a handful of salt; then wash your potatoes clean; peel 'em all but a strip or two to hold together; cut out the spots, and let 'em lay awhile in cold water; when it's time to cook 'em, throw 'em into your biling water, and clap on your lid; then—"
Betsey stopped suddenly and looked over her shoulder to listen, but, hearing no carriage-wheels nor human steps, resumed her occupation. She did not perceive the two little bipeds on the threshold of the door, where they were listening to her soliloquy with great interest, though it was the chicken's steps that had attracted her attention. That silly creature, dissatisfied with his worsted banquet, had hopped along to the robin's side, where he now stood with a hungry crop, round eyes, and two or three colored threads sticking to his bill.
Betsey's thoughts took a new turn. "I must go and see to the fires, and put a good beach chunk on each one. There's a little chill in the air, and everybody wants a fire after a journey. It looks cheerful. I've got six fires going in this house. What do you think of that? To my idea, an open fire in a strange house is equal to a first cousin, sometimes better."
Here a step sounded outside the open window behind the table, and Pat Chester appeared, a stout, fine-looking, red-faced man, with mischievous eyes and an honest mouth. Curiously enough, the base of his nose also was an hypothenuse. Otherwise there was no resemblance between the two. Betsey used to say to him, "Pat, the ends of our noses were sawed off the wrong way."