Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

“ When the girls opened the door and saw Bell's preparations,—the cozy sitting-room, with dining-table in the bay-window, three sofas in a row, so that on snowy days they might extend their lazy lengths thereon, and finally a fir-covered barrel of Nodhead and Baldwin apples in one corner,—there arose bursts of happy laughter and ecstatic cheers loud enough to shock the neighbors, who seldom laughed and never cheered.
“I know it's an original idea to have an apple-barrel in your parlor corner,” said Bell; “but the common-sense of it will be seen by every thoughtful mind. ”

“ After bidding their visitors goodnight, Bell and Jo went into the kitchen to put buckwheat cakes to raise for breakfast.
“I believe I'll chop the meat hash for a half-hour while the kitchen is warm,” said Jo. “Emma Jane is right about the knife; it is dull beyond words!”
“If it is any duller than Emma Jane herself, I am sorry for it,” rejoined Bell.
“It's a poor workman who complains of his tools, Jo,” said Patty, looking in at the door, with a superior air; “Columbus discovered America in an open boat.” ”

“ Hart, the poor washerwoman who scorched her white skirt; and who stayed away from the church sociable to take care of that horrid room mate of hers who had a headache?”
“Patty, if you don't desist,” cried Jo, with a flaming face, and brandishing a hair-brush fiercely, “I'll throw this at your dear, charitable little head. Now, Bell, you know we all agreed to tell a story of adventure each night before going to bed, and I think you, as hostess, ought to begin. If the entertainment is delayed much longer it will find me asleep with fatigue and over-feeding in the front row of the orchestra.” ”

“ Do you think we could manage them?”
“They must be easy enough,” answered Patty, with calm authority. “Cut a hole out of the middle of each round thing, then till it up with jelly and bake it; that's simple.”
“Glad you think so,” responded Edith, with an air of deep melancholy and cynicism, as she prepared to wash the cooking dishes and found an empty dish-water pot. “I should think the jelly would grow hard and crusty before the tarts baked, but I suppose it's all right. Everything we touch to-day is sure to fail.” ”

“ Isn't it a wonderful thing that He can wake up the life that's asleep under the frozen earth?”
“Well,” rejoined Jo, dismally, “there's something to begin on out there, but I don't think I have much of a soul; any way, I have never seen any signs of it. You always say things so prettily, Bell, that I like to hear you sermonize. You'd make a good minister's wife.”
“I think you have plenty of 'soul material,' Jo,” said Lilia, confusedly struggling to make a figure of speech express her meaning. ”

“ When a person cooks twenty-seven potatoes, with the reasonable expectation of having half left to fry, and sees a solitary one left in the dish, with all its lovely companions both faded and gone, she is naturally disheartened. Any way, we have finished for to-night, so the Dish Brigade can marshal its forces. We will take our one potato into the kitchen, Jo, and see if we can make it enough for breakfast. ”

“ As for the clock, it held up its hands with astonishment, and struck five shrill exclamation points of surprise to see six wide-awake young persons tumbling out of their warm nests before the world was lighted or heated.
The day's hours were hardly enough for the day's plans, for there were farewell coasting, skating, and sleighing parties, besides active daily preparations for the pantomime. The costumes of the hoys were gorgeous to behold, and were fashioned entirely by the girls' clever fingers. ”

“ The two girls ran across the long, cold hall, opened the kitchen door stealthily, and Jo asked in her sweetest tones, “Can't we set the table or help in any way, Miss Miranda?”
“No, I thank you, Josephine; there is nothing to do, or leastways you wouldn't know where things are, and wouldn't be any good. The Porter girl may come in if she wants to, but two of you would only clutter up the kitchen.”
So Lilia went in meekly, and poor Jo flew back to the parlor, smarting under a bitter sense of disgrace. ”

“ Let us get up at five to-morrow morning, have a simple breakfast of—”
“Cornmeal mush or dry bread and milk,” finished Lilia, with grim sarcasm. “If time must be saved, of course, it must come out of the cooking! How are we to do this amount of work on a low diet, I should like to know?”
“How are the cooks to get time for anything outside the kitchen if they humor your unnatural appetites! Out of kindness, we propose to lower you gradually, meal by meal, into the pit of boarding-school fare.” ”

“ I am disfigured for life, and I wasn't very good-looking before.”
“Girls,” said Bell, “let us dress this very instant, for we can't be too quick about a thing of this kind. You, Jo, build the kitchen fire, and, Alice, make a blaze on the hearth in here; then, after we've made her comfortable, Edith can run and tell Uncle Harry to come.”
“Put on the kettle,” added Patty, “and heat blankets; they always do that in emergencies.”
“Don't frighten me to death,” wailed Lilia, “calling me 'a thing of this kind' and an 'emergency.' I don't feel a hit worse than I did in the night.” ”

“ The breakfast was as bad as a breakfast knew how to be. The girls were all cooks to-day in the exciting preparation for the picnic, for they wanted to take especially tempting dainties in order that they might astonish more experienced providers. Patty scorched the milk toast; Edith, that most precise and careful of all little women under the sun, broke a platter and burned her fingers; Lilia browned a delicious omelet, and waved the spider triumphantly in the air, astonished at her own success, when, alas, the smooth little circlet slipped illnaturedly into the coal hod. ”

“ It's thick when it's cold; and when it was froze, maybe it did look like pie-meat with a good deal of apple in it; but it ain't no such thing.”
This was too much. If I am to relate truly the adventures of this half-dozen suffering little maidens, I must tell you that Bell entirely lost her sunny temper for a moment; caught up the unoffending spider filled with molasses and floating bits of suet; carried it steadily and swiftly to the back-door, hurled it into a snow-bank; slammed the door, and sat down on a flour-firkin, burying her face in the very dingy roller-towel. ”

“ As to her dress, nobody knew whether it was the proper one for a Scottish bride or not; but it was the only available thing, and certainly she looked in it a very bewitching and sufficient excuse for Lochinvar's rash folly. It was of some shining white material, and came below the ankle, just showing a pair of jaunty high-heeled slippers; the skirt was 'broidered and flounced to the belt, the waist simple and full, with short puffed sleeves; while a bridal veil and dainty crown of flowers made her as winsome and bonny as a white Scottish rose. ”

“ We're out of molasses, eggs, lard, ginger, jelly, patience, and luck.”
Over an hour was spent in futile excursions through the cookery books, vain rummagings of the pantry and larder, frequent trips to the country store, and nothing was a triumphant success. Things that should have been thin were fat and puffy; those that should have risen high and light as air were flat and soggy; pots, pans, bowls, were heaped on one another in the sink until at one o'clock Alice Forsaith went to bed with a headache, leaving the kitchen in a state of general confusion and uproar. ”

“ What joy to perch in the window-seat with your volume of Virgil, and translate “Hoc opus hic labor est” with half an eye on the gleaming ice of the pond, or the glittering crust of the hillsides! What fun to slip on your rubber boots, muffle yourself in your warm coat (made out of mother's old mink cape) , and run across the way to the Academy for recitations in mathematics or philosophy! ”

“ The girls had determined to have no servant, and their many ingenious plans for managing and dividing the work were the source of great amusement to the teachers, some of whom had been admitted to their confidence. Josie Fenton and Bell were to do the cooking, Jo claiming the sternly practical department best suited to her—meat, vegetables, and bread—while Bell was to concoct puddings, cakes, and the various little indigestible dainties toward which schoolgirl hearts are so tender. ”

“ The girls had flown too high in their journey through the cook book. Bell and Jo could really make plain things very nicely, and were considered remarkable caterers by their admiring family of school-mates; but the dainties they had attempted were entirely beyond their powers; hence the pile of wasted goodies in the closet.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Lilia. “Nobody has spoken a word for an age, and I don't wonder, if everybody is as tired as I. Shall we ever be rested enough to go to-morrow?”
“I was thinking,” said Edith, dreamily, “that we have only seven more days to stay. ”

“ The air was keen and nipping and the wind blew steadily from the north and howled about the chimneys until one hardly knew whether to hug the warmth of the open fire or to go out and battle with the elements. ”

“ I think I have corn enough; I've popped and popped and popped as no one ever popped before, and till popping has ceased to be fun.”
“Pop on, pop ever; the more you give us, Jo, the more popular you'll be,” laughed Bell.
“She is a veritable 'pop-in-J,' isn't she?” cried Lilia.
“Now Lilia,” said Edith, “let us get the apples and nuts, and we'll sit in a ring on the floor, and eat. I shan't crack the almonds; the girl that hath her teeth, I say, is no girl, if with her teeth she cannot crack an almond. Lilia, you're not a bit of assistance ”

“ We can all sleep in a row, and then there'll be no quarreling about bedfellows or rooms. I certainly am a good contriver,” cried Bell, with a triumphant little laugh.
“It looks awful like a hospital, and the bolsters will keep fallin' down in between and it'll be dreadful hard mak-in' 'em up of a mornin',” rejoined Emma Jane, who was no flatterer, being New England born and bred.
The sitting-room coal stove had accommodations, on top and back, for cooking, so Bell thought that their suppers, with perhaps an occasional breakfast, might be prepared there. ”

“ You, Alice, and Josie Fenton, are too far from home to go there anyway, so I shall lead you off as helpless captives. Your mother is in town, Lilia, so that you can ask her immediately, and hear the worst; you and Edith, Patty, are only a half-day's journey away, and can find out easily. I know you can get permission, for it's going to be perfectly proper and safe. Grandmamma lives nearby, the Sawyer spinsters are the village duennas, and Uncle Harry can protect us from any rampaging burglars and midnight marauders that may happen in to pay their respects. ”

“ Any impertinence of ours is sure to be visited upon us in the form of oatmeal porridge, or salt fish and crackers.”
“Lilia Porter, if you want to be an angel by and by, it would be better to draw your thoughts away from eatables for a time; you talk quite too much about food,” said Edith Lambert, who had a very hearty appetite, but never called attention to it. ”

“ However,” turning again to Alice, “it isn't to be supper, but dinner. The meals at this house are to be thus and so: Breakfast at 9 a.m., luncheon at 12 m., dinner at 5 p.m., refreshments at various times betwixt and between, and all affairs pertaining to eatables are to be completely under the control of the chefs, Mesdemoiselles Winship and Fenton. We cannot have you 'suggesting' dinner at all hours, Miss Forsaith. If time hangs heavy on your hands, occupy it in your own branches of housework.” ”

“ Uncle Harry was in great demand, and very often made one of the gay party of young folks off for a frolic. They defied King Winter openly, and went on all sorts of excursions, even on a bona-fide picnic, notwithstanding the two feet of snow on the ground. The way of it was this: On Friday, the boys—Hugh Pennell, Bell's cousin, Jack Brayton, and the young schoolmaster—turned the great bare hall in the top of the old Winship family house into a woodland bower. ”

“ You haven't run off and got married, have you?” cried Miss Jane.
“Not quite so bad as that; but I'm going to bring five of my schoolmates over to-morrow, and we intend to stay here two weeks all alone, as housekeepers and householders.”
“Land o' mercy,” moaned the nervous Miss Miranda. “That Pa o' yourn would let you tread on him and not notice it. How any sensible man could do sech a crazy thing as to let a pack of girls tear his house to pieces, I don't see. You'll burn us all up before a week's out; I declare I sha'n't sleep a wink for worrying the whole time.” ”

“ Jo is with her now. If you'll go and wake Uncle Harry, Edith, it is the best thing we can do. Run along with her, too, Patty, and you won't be afraid together.”
Alice and Bell went back presently to Lilia, who looked even worse, now that the room was bright with the glow of the open fire and the pale light of the student lamp. ”

“ Our forces will consume a peck a day, and life is too short to spend it in galloping up and down cellar constantly for apples.”
“Bell Winship, you are an inhospitable creature,” exclaimed Lilia Porter. “Here I am, calmly seated on a coal-hod with my hat on, while you are talking so fast that you can't get time to show us our apartments. Shelter before food, say I!”
“Apartments!” sniffed Bell, in mock dudgeon. “You are very grand in your ideas! ”

“ I remember being sorry that the pretty young thing was going to marry the disagreeable, ugly chief. He was just as jealous and ferocious as he could be—wouldn't let her talk to one of the warriors of the tribe, and had shot one man already because he fancied Eskaluna admired him.”
A chorus of “Oh's” and “Ah's” interrupted Bell, and Alice's eyes grew round with interest, for she was sixteen and had been called a “cruel coquette” by a young student at Wareham. ”