The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.), Marshall P. Wilder [the reading list book TXT] 📗

kitchen, had no certain views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in the course of time—any time, and generally less than a week—become eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her—one of those antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is, perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.

Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique. Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers, laundresses—all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a salary.

Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with Miss Lyberg. Compared with the[Pg 47] Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.

"I've discovered one thing," said Letitia on the evening of the third day. "The girl is just a peasant, probably a worker in the fields. That is why she is so ignorant."

I thought this reasoning foolish. "Even peasants eat, my dear," I muttered. "She must have seen somebody cook something. Field-workers have good appetites. If this woman ever ate, what did she eat and why can't we have the same? We have asked her for no luxuries. We have arrived at the stage, my poor girl, when all we need is, prosaically, to 'fill up.' You have given her opportunities to offer us samples of peasant food. The result has been nil."

"It is odd," Letitia declared, a wrinkle of perplexity appearing in the smooth surface of her forehead. "Of course, she says she doesn't understand me. And yet, Archie, I have talked to her in pure Swedish."

"I suppose you said, 'Pray give me a piece of venison,' from the conversation book."

"Don't be ridiculous, Archie. I know the Swedish for cauliflower, green peas, spinach, a leg of mutton, mustard, roast meat, soup, and—"

"'If the wind be favorable, we shall be at Gothenburg in forty hours,'" I interrupted. She was silent, and I went on: "It seems a pity to end your studies in Swedish, Letitia, but fascinating though they be, they do not really necessitate our keeping this barbarian. You can always pursue them, and exercise on me. I don't mind.[Pg 48] Even with an American cook, if such a being exist, you could still continue to ask for venison steak in Swedish, and to look forward to arriving at Gothenburg in forty hours."

Letitia declined to argue. My mood was that known as cranky. We were in the drawing-room, after what we were compelled to call dinner. It had consisted of steak burned to cinders, potatoes soaked to a pulp, and a rice pudding that looked like a poultice the morning after, and possibly tasted like one. Letitia had been shopping, and was therefore unable to supervise. Our delicate repast was capped by "black" coffee of an indefinite straw-color, and with globules of grease on the surface. People who can feel elated with the joy of living, after a dinner of this description, are assuredly both mentally and morally lacking. Men and women there are who will say: "Oh, give me anything. I'm not particular—so long as it is plain and wholesome." I've met many of these people. My experience of them is that they are the greatest gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor whose geniality veils all sorts of satire and merciless comment.

Letitia and I both felt weak and miserable. We had made up our minds not to dine out. We were resolved to keep the home up, even if, in return, the home kept us down. Give in, we wouldn't. Our fighting blood was up. We firmly determined not to degenerate into that clammy American institution, the boarding-house feeder and the[Pg 49] restaurant diner. We knew the type; in the feminine, it sits at table with its bonnet on, and a sullen gnawing expression of animal hunger; in the masculine, it puts its own knife in the butter, and uses a toothpick. No cook—no lack of cook—should drive us to these abysmal depths.

Letitia made no feint at Ovid. I simply declined to breathe the breath of The Lives of Great Men. She read a sweet little classic called "The Table; How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It," by Alessandro Filippini—a delightful table-d'hôte-y name. I lay back in my chair and frowned, waiting until Letitia chose to break the silence. As she was a most chattily inclined person on all occasions, I reasoned that I should not have to wait long. I was right.

"Archie," said she, "according to this book, there is no place in the civilized world that contains so large a number of so-called high-livers as New York City, which was educated by the famous Delmonico and his able lieutenants."

"Great Heaven!" I exclaimed with a groan, "why rub it in, Letitia? I should also say that no city in the world contained so large a number of low-livers."

"'Westward the course of Empire sways,'" she read, "'and the great glory of the past has departed from those centers where the culinary art at one time defied all rivals. The scepter of supremacy has passed into the hands of the metropolis of the New World.'"

"What sickening cant!" I cried. "What fiendishly exaggerated restaurant talk! There are perhaps fifty fine restaurants in New York. In Paris there are five hundred finer. Here we have places to eat in; there they have artistic resorts to dine in. One can dine anywhere in Paris. In New York, save for those fifty fine restaurants, one feeds. Don't read any more of your cook-book to me,[Pg 50] my girl. It is written to catch the American trade, with the subtile pen of flattery."

"Try and be patriotic, dear," she said soothingly. "Of course, I know you wouldn't allow a Frenchman to say all that, and that you are just talking cussedly with your own wife."

A ring at the bell caused a diversion. We hailed it. We were in the humor to hail anything. The domestic hearth was most trying. We were bored to death. I sprang up and ran to the door, a little pastime to which I was growing accustomed. Three tittering young women, each wearing a hat in which roses, violets, poppies, cornflowers, forget-me-nots, feathers and ribbons ran riot, confronted me.

"Miss Gerda Lyberg?" said the foremost, who wore a bright red gown, and from whose hat six spiteful poppies lurched forward and almost hit me in the face.

For a moment, dazed from the cook-book, I was nonplussed. All I could say was "No," meaning that I wasn't Miss Gerda Lyberg. I felt so sure that I wasn't that I was about to close the door.

"She lives here, I believe," asserted the damsel, again shooting forth the poppies.

I came to myself with an effort. "She is the—the cook," I muttered weakly.

"We are her friends," quoth the damsel, an indignant inflection in her voice. "Kindly let us in. We've come to the Thursday sociable."

The three bedizened ladies entered without further parley and went toward the kitchen, instinctively recognizing its direction. I was amazed. I heard a noisy greeting, a peal of laughter, a confusion of tongues, and then—I groped my way back to Letitia.

"They've come to the Thursday sociable!" I cried.[Pg 51]

"Who?" she asked in astonishment, and I imparted to her the full extent of my knowledge. Letitia took it very nicely. She had always heard, she said, in fact Mrs. Archer had told her, that Thursday nights were festival occasions with the Swedes. She thought it rather a pleasant and convivial notion. Servants must enjoy themselves, after all. Better a happy gathering of girls than a rowdy collection of men. Letitia thought the idea felicitous. She had no objections to giving privileges to a cook. Nor had I, for the matter of that. I ventured to remark, however, that Gerda didn't seem to be a cook.

"Then let us call her a 'girl,'" said Letitia.

"Gerda is a girl, only because she isn't a boy," I remarked tauntingly. "If by 'girl' you even mean servant, then Gerda isn't a girl. Goodness knows what she is. Hello! Another ring!"

This time Miss Lyberg herself went to the door, and we listened. More arrivals for the sociable; four Swedish guests, all equally gaily attired in flower hats. Some of them wore bangles, the noise of which, in the hall, sounded like an infuriation of sleigh-bells. They were Christina and Sophie and Sadie and Alexandra—as we soon learned. It was wonderful how welcome Gerda made them, and how quickly they were "at home." They rustled through the halls, chatting and laughing and humming. Such merry girls! Such light-hearted little charmers! Letitia stood looking at them through the crack of the drawing-room door. Perhaps it was just as well that somebody should have a good time in our house.

"Just the same, Letitia," I observed, galled, "I think I should say to-morrow that this invasion is most impertinent—most uncalled for."

"Yes, Archie," said Letitia demurely, "you think you should say it. But please don't think I shall, for I assure[Pg 52] you that I shan't. I suppose that we must discharge her. She can't do anything and she doesn't want to learn. I don't blame her. She can always get the wages she asks by doing nothing. You would pursue a similar policy, Archie, if it were possible. Everybody would. But all other laborers must know how to labor."

I was glad to hear Letitia echoing my sentiments. She was quite unconsciously plagiarizing. Once again she took up the cook-book. The sound of merrymaking in the kitchen drifted in upon us. From what we could gather, Gerda seemed to be "dressing up" for the delectation of her guests. Shrieks of laughter and clapping of hands made us wince. My nerves were on edge. Had any one at that moment dared to suggest that there was even a suspicion of humor in these proceedings I should have slain him without compunction. Letitia was less irate and tried to comfort me.

Letitia sighed, and shut up the cook-book. Eggs à la reine seemed as difficult as trigonometry, or conic sections, or differential calculus—and much more expensive. Certainly the eight giggling cooks in the kitchen, now at the very height of their exhilaration, worried themselves little about such concoctions. My nerves again began to play pranks. The devilish pandemonium infuriated me. Letitia was tired and wanted to go to bed. I was tired and hungry and disillusioned. It was close upon midnight and the Swedish Thursday was about over. I thought it unwise to allow them even an initial minute of Friday. When the clock struck twelve, I marched majestically to the kitchen, threw open the door, revealed the octette in the enjoyment of a mound of ice-cream and a mountain of cake—that in my famished condition made my mouth water—and announced in a severe, yet subdued tone, that the revel must cease.[Pg 53]

"You must go at once," I said, "I am going to shut up the house."

Then I withdrew and waited. There was a delay, during which a Babel of tongues was let loose, and then Miss Lyberg's seven guests were heard noisily leaving the house. Two