Zona Gale

“ Back in her kitchen Jane Mellish turned with definite relief for the sympathy and indorsement of Grandma Mellish. The old woman was before the stove again.
"What do you think!" Jane shouted, sitting on tin wood-box beside her. "Them women can't leave me alone. They keep harping away on my bread receipt." ”

“ Molly said. "But Nat says he knows I can stay if I like. Only—"
"Well, I should think so," said Grandma Mellish. "It's a good school. You stay. Wants back, does she? The brass!"
Molly looked at her mother, but Jane did not meet her eyes. It would be serious, this loss of the school. There were the three of them, and Molly was the breadwinner. If she were to get no other school next year. ...
"You've got the good of the school to think of," Jane said. "You must be the best teacher, or Nat wouldn't be so sure of the Board. The good of the school's the main thing." ”

“ Mis' Port put in, "you'd be ashamed to withhold so from the Lord, Jane."
Jane beat at her sponge. "The Lord wouldn't earn a cent more by my receipt being in," she answered.
"Earnin' money ain't all the Lord thinks about," Mis' Burns returned, tartly. "They is such a thing as sacrificin' for a sweet savor."
"You tend to your own sweet savors, Sarah Burns," Jane flashed, "and I'll tend to mine." ”

“ Nevertheless, on the night before Communion, two weeks later, Jane "set sponge," as usual, for her bread. It was a task in which she always delighted. She brought special pans, kept scrupulously for nothing else; she measured and weighed her flour; for years she had dissolved her yeast in the same blue cup. She moved among her ingredients like a priestess. The time bore less the flavor of a task than of a ceremony.
Nat Commons dropped in the kitchen on his way to the School Board meeting.
"I'm going to stay to it just long enough to see 'em vote to keep you in the school," he said to Molly. ”

“ He glanced swiftly round the city room, and, seeing only bent, absorbed heads and green eye-shades, he kissed Molly, in the comparative shadow of the telephone-booth.
"Nat!" said Jane Mellish.
Her tone was so sharp that the city editor himself looked up.
"I want to put something more in the cook-book," said Jane. "Is they time?" ”

“ Molly went with him to the door, and in the dusk two women were entering—Mis' Tyrus Burns and Mis' Arthur Port. They went by her into the kitchen. When Nat had gone, Molly sat on the porch. The door stood open to the spring night, and she could hear the voices of the women.
"My land!" Mis' Tyrus Burns said, "if Jane ain't setting her white-bread sponge! Want we should shut our eyes, Jane?"
"Why else did you come to this door, if you didn't know that?" Jane countered, intent on her stirring.
"Want we should shut our eyes?" ”

“ Mis' Tyrus Burns said, "Anybody would."
Molly walked home in no agitation, no debate. Her mother was not in the kitchen. Gandma Mellish sat there, shaving sweet flag.
"Your ma's up-stairs," she said. "She wants you should go on up."
When her bread-pan was covered beside the stove, Jane, sitting in the kitchen to pore over the receipt-book, turned straight to t+he dedication. There it was, in a border of pine cones and quill pens and unicorns.
Some one has said that we are what we eat, It is well known that food makes people what we are. ”

“ She produced the proofs of the receipt-book, and the two turned the leaves while Jane kept on at her work. She knew that her dedication would be there in type, in the women's hands.
"Leona Grace," said Mis' Tyrus Burns, "and her cottage-cheese receipt. She don't set it on the stove at all. I'll bet it ain't fit to put on bread."
"Nor Mis' Kent Carter's cream potatoes, either," Mis' Port contributed. "Sprinkles dry flour on 'em, in the skillet! The idear! Anything to make work easy for Mis' Carter. She's ashamed to fuss decent." ”

“ Jane said, and did so, though she knew that the old woman could not hear. Jane loved to read it through.
" '—an offering to the Ideal, a sweet savor and flavor unto the Lord,' " she ended.
"Set around here where them dum faces can't see me," Grandma Mellish said only. "You didn't give 'em your white-bread receipt, did you?" she demanded, shrilly.
"I should say not," answered the author of the dedication.
"Them aid societies is a brassy lot," the old woman volunteered. "Allus got their claws out for somebody's snuff-box."
"Do you like the dedication, grandma?" Jane asked. ”

“ And I declare I don'no' which Jane Mellish is et by."
Molly looked after Mis' Burns. "She never said a word about Ellen coming home," Molly thought. "But my! how she must wish I was out of the way."
The moon was free of the locust-trees when the gate opened again, and Molly, still alone on the porch, greeted Nat Commons. This great, fine creature, president of the Katy Town School Board, bass singer in the First Church choir, was on his way to his night's work as foreman in the Katy Town Epitome composing-room. The two did not shake hands. ”

“ Of late she had been querulous, too, about certain grinning faces on the cook-stove.
"They're makin' fun of what they think you be," she said once. "You can stand there fryin' things, as moral as the minister, but you can't fool them faces. Dum 'em."
She sat in the kitchen now, patching a roller-towel. "Be they done clackin'?" she inquired, as Jane entered.
With the table-cloth in her hand, Jane stooped to her, told her about the book and the new church carpet. "They want I should put my white-bread receipt in," she said.
"The brass!" said Grandma Mellish, shrilly. "The brass!" ”

“ Mis' Burns explained. "She beats 'em, and beats 'em, and beats 'em. One hour by the clock, that woman beats 'em. I'm crazy to try that receipt."
Jane, beating steadily at her sponge, stood this as long as she could. "What do you think of the dedication, ladies?" ”

“ Communion day in the Katy Town First Church was a day of deep religious and social import. On that day there seemed some return of all the rich reticence of the more formal church interiors, now long lost in democratizations. ”

“ Jane confessed. "What was Sarah Burns saying to you out on the porch last night?" she added.
"She wanted I should speak to you about your white-bread receipt," Molly told her. "Mother, why not let them have it?"
Jane spoke out with a passion which amazed her daughter. "Why don't Sarah Burns sell her mahogany and her silver tea-set away from Ellen?" she cried. "I 'ain't no such things for you. Everybody in town's crazy over my bread receipt. You'd be the fifth generation that's kep' it secret. I won't give it. It's all we've got. ”