really, as rosie pointed out, the work for floribel’s and zeke’s day out began the morning before. you had to make sure then that there was enough raw material in the house for the three meals of the next day. therefore, early wednesday morning before they went to market, the three girls sat down at the typewriter and worked out the program of their three meals.
“rosie, you take charge of this first day,” maida urged, “you’ve had so much more experience than laura or me. don’t you think she ought, laura?”
“i certainly do,” laura agreed with conviction. “thank goodness, breakfast is always easy. it’s fruit, and breakfast food and eggs. thank goodness too, that fruit grows already made. just think how much work it would be if we had to cook oranges and peaches, or if we had to shell berries. and what a blessing milk is! how nice of the cow to deliver it all cooked.”
“well, then,” rosie began, taking the situation in hand at once, “let’s start with fruit. let’s have oranges—”
“oh let’s!” interrupted maida excitedly, “i know a perfectly beautiful way to prepare oranges. you cut the skins into quarters and then into eighths while they’re still on the orange. you don’t pull them off, but you turn them back, so that the orange stands in the midst of petals of its own peel—just like a gold pond-lily.”
“all except delia’s orange,” laura put in.
“i notice that mrs. dore gives her orange juice. and after she has squeezed it, she strains it very carefully.”
“all right, laura,” rosie agreed again, at once, “you can attend to the oranges.”
“i think we’d better have prepared breakfast-food this first breakfast,” maida suggested. “we are bound to make a lot of mistakes in cooking; but we can’t hurt anything that just comes out of a box.”
“yes, you’re right, maida,” rosie agreed. “now, shall we have an omelette? i know how to cook omelettes. no, i guess we’d better have boiled eggs. they’re the easiest, and i don’t want to make any mistakes the first day if possible.”
“well that settles breakfast,” maida declared with satisfaction. “now what are we going to have for dinner?”
“i’d like to have a fish chowder,” rosie suggested. “we haven’t had one this summer. most everybody likes chowder. and then,” she added with a smile, “it’s the only thing i know how to cook.”
“then we’ll have it, rosie,” maida decided.
“i’ll teach you to how to make chowder if you like,” rosie offered.
“oh will you, rosie?” maida asked ecstatically. “i love fish chowder. i’ve never in all my life had enough. how i would enjoy making it.”
“and then,” rosie continued, “for dessert, we’ll have a bread pudding. it’s the only pudding i know how to make.”
laura drew a long breath, “what’ll we eat next thursday?” she asked in a serious tone. “i don’t know how to cook anything but popovers and custards and cake. maida doesn’t know how to cook anything at all. and you are cooking, this first thursday, everything you know.”
rosie sighed too. “well we’ll consider next thursday when it comes,” she decided wisely, “and besides granny and mrs. dore[pg 106] or floribel will teach us how to cook anything—they said they would. and now we come to supper.”
however supper was not so easy for laura as for the other two, because rosie immediately decided that laura should make some of her one-two-three-four cake. the rest of the meal was to be bread and butter, some of the preserves left over from the year before, with which the house was richly provided; and great pitchers of milk.
“we’ve got to do the cooking for this whole day ourselves,” maida sighed. “there isn’t a thing in which the boys can help us.”
“no,” rosie admitted regretfully, “and i wanted to make them work too. next week,” she added, “they’ll be busy enough because we’ll have ice cream and they’ll have to turn the freezer.”
the girls pinned up their schedule of meals on the kitchen wall; set the alarm clock for an incredibly early hour; went to bed at eight, instead of nine, very serene in their minds.
the record of their first day was probably as good and as bad as that of most amateur cooks. in the early morning, the little girls moved so noiselessly about the big kitchen and[pg 107] talked in such low tones that mrs. dore said she had not heard a sound until the breakfast bell rang. the first two courses of breakfast went off beautifully. then they discovered they had boiled the eggs twelve minutes. granny declared that they must eat them because eggs were expensive. perhaps it was to take away the sting from this mistake that mrs. dore remarked that she had never seen oranges look so beautiful as these—in their curled golden calyxes.
when it came to luncheon, there were mistakes again; but not such serious ones. rosie’s chowder was hot and perfectly delicious; only there wasn’t enough of it. rosie herself nobly went without; but the children clamored for more. on the other hand, she had made enough bread pudding for a family twice their size. here the boys eagerly came to the rescue and demanded three helpings each.
supper was very successful. granny flynn and mrs. dore congratulated rosie warmly upon it.
“well i didn’t make any mistakes for this meal,” rosie said dryly, “because there wasn’t anything that i cooked.”
however granny continued to praise the three tired little girls.
“it’s foine little cooks you’ll make,” she prophesied.
in the glow that this praise developed, they washed and wiped the dishes, chattering like magpies. and then, following the impulse which emerged from that happy glow, they cleaned up floribel’s kitchen; re-arranged and re-decorated it.
they re-arranged and re-decorated to such good purpose that, the next day, floribel said privately to mrs. dore. “it sho do look beautiful. ah’se never seen a kitchen lak it, but ah can’t find a single thing.”
