CHAPTER VIIIA LITTLE COOK
HALF an hour later, anyone who looked in at the windows of the Pomeroy kitchen would have seen a pretty sight. Polly, mounted on a stool, was beating a golden mixture in a white bowl, and Arctura, at the opposite end of the long table, was stirring whites of eggs carefully into a white batter in a yellow bowl.
POLLY WAS BEATING A GOLDEN MIXTURE IN A BIG WHITE BOWL
POLLY WAS BEATING A GOLDEN MIXTURE IN A BIG WHITE BOWL
“This is what I call solid comfort,” said Arctura, gayly. “I don’t know when I’ve had such a helper as you are! Miss Hetty’s without the gift when it comes to cooking. You wouldn’t believe it, but she’d be just as likely to put the eggs right in after the butter, without beating ’em separate, as any other way. Ain’t it singular?”
“I expect she writes beautiful letters, Miss Arctura,” said Polly, loyally evading the discussion of Miss Pomeroy’s weak point.
“My, I guess she does!” said Arctura, heartily. “That’s it; we’ve all got different talents. Hiram says he’d full as soon see me with a pistol pointed at him as with a pen in my hand. The only way I ever wrote a letter was by main strength, and I’d rather take a whipping any time.”
“I guess it would be pretty hard work for anybody to whip you,” said Polly, shrewdly, and Arctura laughed with much relish.
“’Twould now-a-days,” she said, as she gave the final stir to her batter, “but I’ve been whipped in my time. I didn’t get my growth all at once, you see. Is your cake ready for the pans? You wait till I show you the cunning little brush I’m going to butter the tins with. I’ll let you do yours next time, after I’ve once showed you how. You can’t slight the edges or any spot, if you want the cakes to slip out right.”
When the heat of the oven had been tested and the little round tins had been put in and the oven doors shut on them, Arctura selected a stout testing straw from a pile on a high shelf above the kitchen sink and seated herself, holding the straw erect in her hand like a tiny weapon.
“I always take this time for a breathing spell,” she announced, motioning Polly to another chair, “for if I start in on a fresh job, those cakes more’n likely’ll get burned; it only takes twenty-five minutes to bake ’em to the queen’s taste.”
“Yes’m,” said Polly; then she looked eagerly over at Arctura. “Did you ever see little Eleanor?” she asked, breathlessly.
“No, never,” said Arctura, and Polly felt a throb of disappointment. “You see, Square Pomeroy didn’t depart this life till a year ago last December, and he was kind of queer,” Arctura tapped her forehead significantly, “the last few years, and ’twasn’t a cheerful place to bring a child. And he’d hardly let his daughter out of his sight. About once in six months I’d send her off to Shelby to see the twins for two or three days, but I was always put to it to keep the Square satisfied till she got back.”
“Was he cross?” asked Polly.
“Not to say cross,” replied Arctura, slowly, “but terrible decided and unreasonable. Miss Hetty’s had her trials, and so’ve I; money isn’t all.”
“No’m,” said Polly, soberly, “but it does a great many things, Miss Arctura. Did you know how poor this town is? Manser farm leaks in places, and the paint is all gone, and the ceilings drop sometimes, pieces of them, I mean. But the town is too poor to help fix any of those things. Uncle Sam Blodgett and Father Manser would shingle the roof quick enough, though they aren’t as spry as once they were, if only they could set eyes on the shingles,” said Polly, quoting freely from her old friends.
“It’s a stingy town, I’m afraid,” said Arctura, shaking her head. “The Square was the most liberal man in it, and Miss Hetty follows right on, but most of the purse strings are drawn pretty close. Sometime I’ll tell you a little story about the Square and me when I was your age; you remind me to relate it to you. We haven’t got time now,” she said, glancing at the clock, “for those cakes have got to come out in a minute, and then I’ll have to fly around; dinner time always gains on me, someway.”
“Do you know anything special I could do to please Miss Pomeroy?” asked Polly, wistfully. “She’s being so good to me.”
“Let’s see,” said Arctura, meditatively. “Why, of course, she wants you to enjoy yourself. I expect she’d be pleased to see you take notice of things like the old shells and so on, and there’s the books; Bobby admired to read, and she always said Eleanor was quite a hand for stories, too. And you could go to walk with her, pleasant days, same as Bobby did last winter. And she’d be glad to see you relish your food.”
“Oh, I do, Miss Arctura,” cried Polly. “I do, every single bite I take!”
“Well now, that’s good news,” said Miss Green, comfortably. “I can’t think of anything else; you do all right so far as I know. I wouldn’t worry, but just do my best every day as things come along. Now we’ll take a look at those cakes.”
“She didn’t say a word about playing or running round,” thought Polly, as Arctura rose to open the oven doors; “of course, she thinks I’m too big now for those things, just as Mrs. Manser said. There’s a girl in the village that’s most twelve, and she plays with a dolly, for I’ve seen her. But she belonged to somebody, and that’s different, I guess, from when you’re going to be adopted.”
Polly’s lips seemed inclined to quiver for a moment, but then her cakes—the dozen golden brown cakes—were lifted from the oven and set on the table, and in the rush of delight, at seeing the delicate tops puffed up above the edges of the tins, the quiver changed to a smile.
“Arctura says you are a born cook,” said Miss Pomeroy at dinner time, “and she has requested the pleasure of your company tomorrow morning when she makes the pies.”
Polly dimpled with pleasure; she was eating steadily, just as much as she could. Miss Pomeroy noticed her increased appetite with agreeable surprise.
“Miss Arctura was very, very kind to me,” said the little girl, sedately, “and I had a beautiful time, and Miss Arctura said if the minister—the supply minister, that’s nothing more or less than a bashful boy, according to her ideas—came to dinner Sunday, she should set four of my cakes along with four of hers on the table for dessert with the pudding.”
Miss Pomeroy suppressed an inclination to laugh, and told Polly she had understood from Arctura that the cakes were a great success.
“But the minister is not a boy, my dear,” she added; “you must not always take what Arctura says word for word. She used to call me her little girl until I was more than thirty years old.”
Then Miss Pomeroy and Polly had a laugh together, though Polly could not help feeling that Arctura was very brave indeed ever to have called the tall mistress of Pomeroy Oaks her little girl.
After dinner came the two naps, or at least Miss Pomeroy’s nap and Polly’s hour on the bed. Yesterday’s experience had taught Polly that an hour’s nap would be considered enough for her, so at the end of that time she got off the bed softly, and after making herself tidy for the rest of the day, she stole softly downstairs. It was a mild afternoon, and the big front door had been half opened so that the spring air might blow through the screen.
“Of course, if she asks me if I’ve been asleep, I shall have to say no,” said Polly, looking a little bit troubled as she stood at the door, “but I don’t believe she will ask me. Of course, big girls that want to be adopted can learn to go to sleep in the day-time, just as grand grown-up folks do, and I shall learn as soon as ever I can.”
Polly stepped out on the piazza and walked softly up and down, sniffing the air, and thinking how little fear she would have had of the damp ground if she could have run out barefoot as she did so often at Manser farm: and she gave a little sigh as she looked down at the shiny shoes Miss Pomeroy had brought home for her that morning. But Snip and Snap came racing up on the piazza from somewhere, ready for a frolic, and Polly did not disappoint them.
Arctura appeared on the kitchen porch, collecting the milk pans that had been sunning all day, and snapped her fingers to attract Polly’s attention.
“Look here,” she called, “my brother, Hiram, is feeling real neglected because you haven’t been nigh the barn since you came. Can’t you step out and visit with him for a spell now? I’ll call you whenever Miss Hetty wants you.”
Polly needed no second invitation. She was ready to go wherever anyone wished, but, above all things, she had longed to see the barn, with Daisy in it; and Hiram reminded her in some way of Uncle Sam Blodgett, though she could not have told just how. Certainly the two men did not look alike, for Uncle Blodgett was lean and wiry, with a long, thin, nervous face, while Hiram was stout and ruddy, and never in a hurry about anything.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]