Charles Battell Loomis

“ Breakfast was delicious. We have never had a cook who had so much—well, you might call it temperament, as Minerva has. She will toss off a roll with the lightness that makes it a work of art, and her fried chicken is better than the broiled chicken of most cooks.
Ethel already better, and the breakfast such a poem: why, I felt that I was to be envied, and I wondered how people could be content to spend their summers on alien piazzas, eating hotel dinners and watching hotel dwellers dress and pose and gossip. ”

“ We dismissed Minerva from our thoughts, or at least I, man-like dismissed her from mine. I don’t suppose that Ethel was able to do so, but we did not talk of her again, preferring to drink in the beauties of nature and call each other’s attention to each draught. Rare is that nature lover who can silently absorb the loveliness of a landscape. ”

“ For Ethel was just stepping into the carriage.
“That’s Minerva,” said Ethel to Rose. “Our cook. You know her, don’t you? Perfect jewel, but it’s the first time she has ever been away from New York, and she is very mournful.”
“So Philip was saying,” said Rose. “I tell him to give her a box of this dreadful chewing candy. It’s some we got at the only store in South Edgeley, and if she starts a piece it will keep her busy chewing for an hour at least. You’re not afraid to leave her, are you?”
“No, I’m not afraid,” said Ethel; “but I’m afraid she will be. She’s a hare for timidity. Oh, Minerva! ”

“ When Minerva came in with a smoking hot omelet he said,
“Handsomest omelet I ever saw. If it tastes like that I’ll eat every bit myself. You’re a born cook, Minerva.”
Minerva grinned and went into the pantry whence she emerged with bread and butter.
As for the burglar he kept up a running fire of talk about supposed friends of ours.
“Rather sad, that accident to Tom’s nephew, wasn’t it?” said he.
“I hadn’t heard of it,” said Ethel, while I admitted a like ignorance.
“Is that so? Tom is no letter writer. Why little Sanderson fell down an elevator shaft and ripped all the buttons off his shoes.” ”

“ I foresaw what would happen if Minerva left and Ethel went into the kitchen permanently. A sanitarium for her and I an enforced bachelor in some city room—for we had let our flat for the summer.
I do not often interfere with the household work, for my business keeps me at home most of the time, and I hold that when man and wife are both at home it is better to have but one housekeeper and that one a woman, but now I went out into the kitchen to try to mend matters, and I found Minerva looking at the steadily falling rain that was making Mount Nebo look like a ghost of itself. ”

“ There seemed to be something fascinating in the clear-cut tones of the burglar’s voice for Minerva stood in the kitchen listening intently to every word.
“I hope you will enjoin on him the necessity of being honest,” said Ethel with evident enjoyment.
“Example is better than precept, Mrs. Vernon,” said he, looking her straight in the eyes. “I’m not much of a preacher myself. I sometimes say to him, ‘Do as you see me do, my boy, but try to do it better.’ I do hope to enable him to make an easy entry into the homes of really good people. ”

“ The banjoist had seen us first, and had told Minerva, and both had jumped to their feet, the man to bow and Minerva to run into the kitchen, where she was followed by her friend.
By the time we had come up to the front path to the veranda the coloured man had come out from the kitchen and in most melodious tones said,
“Minerva wanted to know if you would like dinner served on the piazza, the evening being so pleasant.”
Delmonico never had a head waiter with the aplomb, the native dignity, the utter unconsciousness of self that this superbly built man displayed. ”

“ You see now-a-days when men in all walks of life write of what they have done, and make books of their writings, the people who read books have gotten to the point when they look with suspicion on a story that is written by a mere professional writer. They say, “Oh, he has done nothing but write. Let us read the book of the man who has first done and has then written.”
But you who have read thus far may feel in a way friendly to Minerva, and the rest, and so I take you into my confidence and make the pun to you that won for me a rebuke from Ethel. Letters spell livelihood for me. ”

“ I had never seen Minerva in such spirits, and it seemed to me that she clung to James’ arm in a way that signified something approaching an understanding between them. What if he married her? How could we find work for him in New York?
She almost danced along, and his own stride was to a certain extent cake-walkey. We saw them enter an ice cream saloon immediately, and we knew they would be happy all day long.
There was joy in the air and we were happy. There is no question about it; as a people we are beginning to take our holidays less sadly. ”

“ THE STORY OF A PIPE. I SUPPOSE that there are prettier places in the world than western Massachusetts, although I should consider it a profitless task to try to find them, but whether it arose from the beauty of the scenery or the witchery of the mountain air, certain it is that we have never stayed at a country place that exercised such a charm over us as did the rolling hills and valleys around Clover Lodge. Ethel was not less under its influence than I, and we have seen how Minerva, coming there with an evident and pronounced disgust for it, was now coming to look on it as home. ”

“ Ugh. I never felt anything so creepy in my life. I flung him from me (with a wild cry, Ethel says, although I think she is mistaken) . At any rate I tossed the snake far from me, and he made his sinuous, chilly, gliding, repulsive way to his waiting family. And probably wrote a book on the bad habits of human beings from his short and superficial observation of them.
There is a certain rooted antipathy to snakes that lies deep at the base of our being. I cannot explain it, but I know it’s there. I am no snake charmer.
Minerva might have said something, but she knew her place, and refrained. ”

“ Your hammer-thrower needs brawn, your chess player brains, your golf player a caddy—and a vocabulary, but anyone can go fishing. Of course there is a great difference between going fishing and catching fish, and I am one of that large army that goes fishing and returns from fishing as innocent of fish as at the moment of departure.
But to the man with eyes, there are many things besides fish that he can catch, and, although no hint of a nibble came to my patient fingers, I reveled in the day and would have stayed longer if I had not felt anxious about Ethel and Minerva. ”

“ Minerva thought a minute. “Apples on the stands in the city sells for five cents, and I’ve seen rows of trees up here full of apples.”
“They call them orchards,” said Ethel.
“Why don’t they call them apples?” asked Minerva.
“No, no, the rows of trees are called orchards, and if the farmers could sell the apples for five cents apiece they would make a great deal of money, but they sell them to other men, who sell them to others, and they sell them to the men who keep the apple stands. The farmers don’t get a cent apiece for them.” ”

“ Benedict buys a picture once in a while and, according to Tom, when he relies on the advice of an artist friend, he gets a good one. When he relies on his own judgment he gets something that provides no end of amusement to all the artists except the one who painted the picture.
“I want none of your impudence, Tom,” said he, and then Minerva interrupted.
It seems as if Minerva were always interrupting and generally with a shriek.
“Oh, Lawdy! Lawdy! there’s a big worm in the kitchen!” cried she as she came running out of the sitting room to where we were standing. ”

“ Ethel had gone up stairs at once. I nodded my head gravely and said,
“Very well, James,” and then I went up to make my toilet.
“The tide has turned, Ethel,” said I when I reached the room. “A kind Providence has sent the grandson of some Senegambian king to wait on us and to amuse Minerva between meals. Put a ribbon in your hair, and I will put a buttercup in my button hole, or I will dress, if you say so, and we will put on the style that befits us.”
“Who is that man?” said Ethel.
“In fairy stories wise people never question. They accept. ”

“ There is something unmistakably enticing in the thought of depending, cool and free from a leafy arbour while the summer moon watches over one’s slumbers, and the lulling breezes croon one to unconsciousness, but loyal as I am to Clover Lodge and its vicinity, I am more loyal to truth, and that night was a night to be remembered for years even as the blizzard is remembered—but for opposite reasons. ”

“ Poor Minerva! She must have been surprised to see that country horses were just like those of the city. Certainly a horse has more evil potentiality than a stupid little bat, but when a beast has you by the hair and you see him, as it were, through the back of your head, he is apt to loom large and terrifying.
Quiet was soon restored and Ethel came down with the lantern. ”

“ Suppose we suppress her insubordination and she works for us all day and takes the evening train for New York, will the thought that we have suppressed insubordination in a cook get us a new servant? Insubordination in the city, where there are whole intelligence offices filled with girls looking for new places, is a thing that I can’t and won’t stand; but insubordination, with Mamie Logan sick with scarlet fever and no other girl in the world that I know of, is a thing to be coddled, as you might say. ”

“ It turned out to be a rock. “There are no sheep around here,” said Ethel. “Bert said so.”
“I wonder if Minerva would be frightened at sheep?”
“She might be. The most peaceful animals aren’t always the most peaceful looking. I think a cow is much more diabolical than a lion as far as looks go. A lion is kind of benign and I dare say that a lion that has just eaten a man looks sleepy and contented and good-natured as he licks his chops.” ”