Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/85

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
TO CURE, OR TO ENDURE.
85

"Not at all. It was the plain truth coarsely told. Oh, how much I would then have given for mammy's faculties—my servants', Anne! There was no alternative, and I was obliged to go on, with the consciousness that I should be as useless in my own home as at the log-hut. However, I had health and unimpaired strength, and the cheerfulness they generate. I was beginning to profit by the lessons of necessity, 'our sternest teacher and our best!' There were no domestic labourers to be obtained. I cannot describe to you my woful condition, nor my family's, when we were first reduced to depending on my culinary skill. Oh, how I broiled over my first beefsteak, dropped it in the ashes, and blistered my fingers, my poor husband standing by the while sympathizing and laughing; my potatoes I served as hard as they were dug out of the earth! The first day we borrowed bread from my husband's farmer, our only neighbour; the next, mammy not coming, I was compelled to make some. I was ashamed to ask directions of our neighbour Mrs. Stone; I thought it must be a simple operation, and I knew, as I supposed, the materials of which it was composed. I kneaded and baked it, after calling my husband from important business to heat and clear my oven. Anne, you would have pitied my consternation if you had seen me when I drew the bread from the oven. It was as solid and as heavy as a brickbat. I cried, my husband laughed, his patience was inexhaustible; I then laughed too, threw away my bread, tied my right arm in a sling, sent for Mrs. Stone, and said, 'You see my condition—will you mix some bread for me?' She set about it with alacrity; I watched