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Page 24
It may be mentioned here that as Mrs. Chadwick's monthly remittances
varied from sixty to seventy-five dollars, but never reached the
promised eighty-five, Polly had dismissed little Yung Lee for a month,
two weeks of which would be the Christmas vacation, and hoped in this
way to make up deficiencies. The sugar-bowl and ginger-jar were
stuffed copiously with notes of hand signed "Cigar-box," but held a
painfully small amount of cash.
"Can't I go out and help Polly?" asked Edgar, a little later. "I
should never have agreed to stay and dine if I had known that she was
the cook."
"Go out, by all means; but you need n't be anxious. Ours is a sort of
doll-house-keeping. We buy everything cooked, as far as possible, and
Polly makes play of the rest. It all seems so simple and interesting
to plan for two when we have been used to twelve and fourteen."
"May I come in?" called Edgar from the tiny dining-room to Polly, who
had laid aside her Sunday finery and was clad in brown Scotch gingham
mostly covered with ruffled apron.
"Yes, if you like; but you won't be spoiled here, so don't hope it.
Mamma and I are two very different persons. Tie that apron round your
waist; I 've just begun the salad-dressing; is your intelligence equal
to stirring it round and round and pouring in oil drop by drop, while I
take up the dinner?"
"Fully. Just try me. I 'll make it stand on its head in three
minutes!"
Meanwhile Polly set on the table a platter of lamb-chops, some delicate
potato chips which had come out of a pasteboard box, a dish of canned
French peas, and a mound of currant-jelly.
"That is good," she remarked critically, coming back to her apprentice,
who was toiling with most unnecessary vigor, so that the veins stood
out boldly on his forehead. "You're really not stupid, for a boy; and
you have n't 'made a mess,' which is more than I hoped. Now, please
pour the dressing over those sliced tomatoes; set them on the
side-table in the banquet-hall; put the plate in the sink (don't stare
at me!); open a bottle of Apollinaris for mamma,--dig out the cork with
a hairpin, I 've lost the corkscrew; move three chairs up to the
dining-table (oh, it's so charming to have three!); light the silver
candlesticks in the centre of the table; go in and bring mamma out in
style; see if the fire needs coal; and I'll be ready by that time."
"I can never remember, but I fly! Oh, what an excellent slave-driver
was spoiled in you!" said Edgar.
The simple dinner was delicious, and such a welcome change from the
long boarding-house table at which Edgar had eaten for over a year.
The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers
underneath them. Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china
shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n't suffer from the
brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and
its quaint full sleeves. She had burned two small blisters on her
wrist: they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded
in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal
wounds. Her mother murmured 'Poor darling wrist' and 'kissed the place
to make it well.' Edgar found a bit of thin cambric and bound up the
injured member with cooling flour, Mistress Polly looking demurely on,
thinking meanwhile how much safer he was with them than with the
objectionable Tony. After the lamb-chops and peas had been discussed,
Edgar insisted on changing the plates and putting on the tomato salad;
then Polly officiated at the next course, bringing in coffee, sliced
oranges, and delicious cake from the neighboring confectioner's.
"Can't I wash the dishes?" asked Edgar, when the feast was ended.
"They are not going to be washed, at least by us. This is a great
occasion, and the little girl downstairs is coming up to clear away the
dinner things."
Then there was the pleasant parlor again, and when the candles were
lighted in the old-fashioned mirror over the fireplace, everything wore
a festive appearance. The guitar was brought out, and Edgar sang
college songs till Mrs. Oliver grew so bright that she even hummed a
faint second from her cosy place on the sofa.
And then Polly must show Edgar how she had made Austin Dobson's
"Milkmaid Song" fit "Nelly Ely," and she must teach him the pretty
words.
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