Poor little Mosina had crawled around her chair till her length of string had given out, and then, endeavouring to crawl between the chair-legs, had fallen forward on her face, and lay sprawled out like a little turtle. The girls flew for her, and rescued her by drawing her out by the heels. She refused to be comforted, however, and continued to roar.
“I suppose she’s hungry,” said Cricket, at last, in a tone of despair. “Hilda, please look in the closet and see what there is for her luncheon. Mosina, do hush, baby! What, Hilda?”
“I said that there isn’t a thing in the closet but two plates and a stone mug, and such things,—not a single thing to eat.”
“Look in that little cupboard by the chimney, then. Shouldn’t you think she must have something to eat around? What shall we do if there isn’t anything to eat anywhere?” in deeper despair.
“There is something here,” announced Hilda, joyfully, having climbed upon a chair to look in the little chimney-closet. After a moment she got down, soberly, and proclaimed the contents of the larder to be two dried herrings, a half loaf of stale bread, some doubtful-looking butter, and a piece of very dry cheese.
The children looked at each other in dismay. Luncheon to them seemed a very serious and pressing matter, especially as Mosina was still roaring, and they knew she was hungry.
“What shall we do?” said Cricket, mournfully; “I feel as hungry as a bear, myself. Oh, Hilda, those cookies!”
Hilda flew across the room for them, with her cap flopping.
Cricket popped a big piece of a cookie into Mosina’s open mouth, and put another in her hand.
“Sit down on the floor now, and be a good baby,” she said, putting her charge down. “It’s dry enough. Now, Hilda, what will we eat? I want something more than cookies.”
“I can’t eat dried herring,” said Hilda, decidedly, her fastidious nose going up in disgust.
“We might toast the bread, I suppose,” said Cricket. “Do you think they don’t ever have anything but dried herring? I’ve always wondered why mamma is always sending things to eat to poor people, and now I know.”
“Can’t they cook, do you suppose, or do they spend all their time washing?” wondered Hilda. “Don’t you think they ever have anything to eat except what people send them?” in an awe-struck tone.
“I don’t believe they do. Can you cut bread, Hilda?”
“Of course. Anybody can cut bread, I should think; where’s the knife?”
“I can’t find any regular bread-knife,” said Cricket, rummaging in the cupboard. “Here’s one, take this; it’s awfully dull, though. While you’re cutting it, I’ll look for a gridiron to toast the bread on.”
Hilda took the loaf and the knife confidently, but soon discovered that cutting bread is a fine art, and not by any means so easy as it looks.
“What is the matter?” she said in despair, at last. “Well, nobody could cut bread with this old knife, that’s as dull as a hoe,” she added, surveying the jagged, uneven wedges, which were all she could manage. “Have you found the gridiron?”
“No. She doesn’t seem to have anything except a teakettle and a saucepan. And here’s a flat thing like what cook fries potatoes in, and here’s a tin pan, and that’s every single thing I can find. What do you suppose she cooks with?” asked Cricket, with increasing surprise, and with a vision before her eyes of the quantities of shining utensils that lined the kitchen closets at home.
“Toast the bread on a fork, then,” said Hilda; “and can’t we cook the herring in some way? I’m getting hungry enough to eat nails now.”
“I suppose we might fry them. Then we could toast the cheese. I know how to do that.”
“All right! we’ll fry the herring in the spider,” said Hilda, brightening; “I believe it will be real good. But what will Mosina eat? Ought she to have herring and toasted cheese?”
“Oh, here’s some milk out on the window ledge!” cried Cricket, joyfully. “We can crumble some of this dry bread in it, and feed Mosina with it. That will be fine for her. Bless the child! she’s as good as a lamb now.”
“Isn’t she! I’ll toast the bread, and you can set the table, Cricket.”
Cricket assented; but after rummaging a while, asked Hilda where she supposed Mrs. Brummagen kept her table-cloths and napkins.
“In that cupboard drawer, probably,” said Hilda, trying to make the uneven chunks of bread balance on the two-tined steel fork which she had found.
“I don’t suppose we ought to look in her drawers, even if we do want a table-cloth. Well, I’ll just peek in. No; there’s nothing there but a dress of Mosina’s,” after a hasty “peek.”
“I can’t eat off that faded pink thing on the table,” said Hilda, with decision. “At least, I don’t believe I can,” she added, more doubtfully, as the empty place in her stomach began to protest against waiting much longer for something to put in it. “Ow! there goes the bread into the fire again!”
She prodded the scorched wedge of bread with the fork, and brought it up successfully. She was growing quite expert in rescuing the pieces and blowing off the ashes.
“Cricket, this bread is simply roasted, instead of toasted.”
“It does smell pretty scorchy,” said Cricket, looking at it anxiously. “We can’t waste it, though, for there isn’t much of it. Hilda, I can’t find a single thing to put on for a table-cloth, excepting a sheet. Wouldn’t you rather have the pink cloth? It looks clean, anyway. Probably her white cloths are all in the wash.”
“I’d eat it on the floor now,” said Hilda, with a decided change of base. “The bread’s done. Now for the herring.”
Cricket proceeded to set the table, by putting the knives and forks and the two plates on.
“There’s the table set. Looks sort of bare, though. What will you do with the herrings? Put them in the spider and let them frizzle?”
“I think so,” said Hilda, doubtfully. “I never saw any cooked, but how else could we eat them? This fire doesn’t seem very hot, Cricket. Can’t we do something to it?”
Considering that the stove lids had been off for fifteen minutes during the bread-toasting, it was not surprising that the top of the fire was a mass of gray ashes.
“Put on coal,” said Cricket, with the air of the lady from Philadelphia. “But do let’s cook the herring first. I’m hungry enough to eat Mosina. Oh, you fatty! aren’t you happy with your cookies!”
“Oh, Cricket, here are some cold boiled potatoes,” cried Hilda, as joyfully as if she had discovered a gold mine. “They were back in this corner. Can’t we fry them?”
“We can,” returned Cricket, promptly. “I’ll fry them in the saucepan while you do the herring. I’ll cut them up.”
Ten minutes later, the two little cooks stood looking at each other in despair. The thin iron of the spider and saucepan heated immediately, even over the dying fire, and the potatoes and herring being put in without any lard, or fat of any kind, naturally stuck fast to the bottom of the pan, and scorched. Most unpleasant odours filled the air.
“Did you ever imagine it was so hard to cook?” sighed Cricket. “That toast was stone-cold long ago. Look at these messy things!”
“The worst of it is that we can’t eat the burned parts,” said Hilda, hungrily, “and there’ll be so little left.”
“Hilda, let’s eat what we can of it right now,” proposed Cricket. “If we cook any more we’ll never get anything to eat.”
“I could eat fried boards,” said Hilda. “Yes, let’s scrape out what of the potatoes isn’t burned tight down, and eat it up fast;” and Hilda picked up the saucepan.
“Oh, Hilda, I forgot about Mosina! Aren’t you the bestest baby! She ought to have her milk, Hilda, and I’ll give her some while you’re fixing luncheon on the table.”
Cricket poured some of the ice-cold milk out into a bowl, and crumbled some dry bread in it.
Mosina received each mouthful with a series of solemn smacks.
“I’m ready when you are, Cricket,” announced Hilda at length, surveying the somewhat scanty board with a hungry eye.
“There goes the last mouthful, Mosina,” said Cricket, stuffing the spoon so hastily into Mosina’s open mouth that the baby choked.
“There! never mind, baby! it didn’t hurt. Now I’m ready, Hilda. Oh, just think! we’ve been so busy with washing and cooking that we’ve forgotten to play for ever so long.”
“Yes, but don’t let’s play now, for goodness sake! I’m too starving hungry! Sit down and begin.”
Cricket and Hilda drew up their chairs to the delicious banquet. On one plate lay a curious-looking heap of what Hilda called toast. It consisted of wedges of bread an inch and a half thick on one side, and nothing at all on the other, burnt crisp on the thin edges, and scorched on the thick ones, with the dust of the ashes which it had collected in its numerous descents into the fire still sticking to it. It was perfectly cold, so that the small lumps of white butter stuck to it unmelted. Two herrings, burnt perfectly black on one side, and, of course, as hard as a piece of coal, reposed side by side on a saucer. Potatoes cut in little chunks, each very black as to one side and very white as to the other, were heaped up on another saucer. These dainties comprised all the meal.
Cricket and Hilda looked at each other a moment in silence, then Cricket said briskly:
“Isn’t this fun? Let’s play this is roast turkey. Shall I carve? or perhaps I’d better give you a whole turkey, seeing we are wealthy enough to have two,” transferring one of the herrings to Hilda’s plate. “Will you have some scalloped oysters?” passing the potatoes. “They’re done by a new recipe,” she added, laughing, and attacking her herring with knife and fork. Hilda followed her example. Of course they might as well have tried to cut their stone plates.
“I’m desperate! please excuse me,” cried Cricket, lifting her herring, head and tail, with her fingers, and attacking it this time with her teeth. She desisted after a vain effort.
“It’s no use,” she sighed. “I got off a few splinters, but they are not so very good. They do taste burned, and if there’s one thing I hate, it’s burn. Well, let’s have some toast.”
“That’s burned a little, too,” said Hilda, apologetically. “Perhaps we can scrape it off where it’s thicker and eat the inside. Cricket, these—these oysters seem to need something. They don’t taste like fried potatoes a bit.”
“Of course they don’t, for they’re oysters. How could oysters taste fried potatoes? But they do taste queer, even for oysters,” said Cricket. “The toast is a little burned, isn’t it?” nibbling first around one scorched place and then around another. Finally she laid the piece down in despair.
“Hilda, the more I eat, the hungrier I get! I think I’ll try some plain bread.”
“There isn’t any more. I toasted all I cut, and the rest you gave to Mosina.”
The two girls sat hungrily surveying the remains of their luncheon. The herring had been abandoned as hopeless. The white top of each little chunk of potato was eaten, though every one knows that scorched potato, without either salt or butter, is not exactly appetising. The inside of the thick ends of the bread had been devoured also, but their fragments were not very satisfying to hearty little appetites.
“There are the cookies,” said Hilda, suddenly.
Cricket sprang for them eagerly, at the suggestion.
“It seems sort of mean to eat the very things we brought,” she said, hesitating a moment. “Oh, well, mamma will send some more things down to-morrow, when I tell her how we eat up everything Mrs. Brummagen had in the house. Don’t these taste good? I feel as if I were at home again now,” attacking a thin, crisp ginger-snap, and making way with it almost in one mouthful. In a minute there was nothing left but the crumbs of the whole supply. Mosina sat staring wistfully at them.
“The poor dear!” said Hilda. “We’ve eaten up every single thing now, and she looks hungry still.”
“There’s a little more milk,” said Cricket, getting it. “Drink this, baby. Hilda, do you suppose the burned bread would hurt her if we crumbled it into the milk for her? Perhaps she won’t taste it.”
Apparently Mosina did not mind it, for she eat it eagerly.
“What let’s do now?” asked Hilda. “When will Mrs. Brummagen be home, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Let’s clear the table and iron these sheets. You know we were going to get them all done.”
Flat-irons had been standing on the stove all the morning, though the girls had pushed them back in their attempts at cooking. Hilda looked resigned at Cricket’s proposal, but said nothing. The two cleared the table of the remains of their banquet, and piled up the scanty array of dishes.
The sheets were still lying in damp, flattened coils in the basket, where they had put them. Cricket found the ironing-board and put it between the table and a chair, as she had seen the laundress do at home. They unfolded a sheet and spread it out carefully, wrinkled and wet, over the board, not noticing that half of it lay on the floor behind.
Cricket, with a professional air, tested one of the irons, again imitating the laundress.
“Pretty hot,” she said. It was really barely warm, for the fire was fast dying, but to her unaccustomed finger it felt hot.
“Now, I’m really Mrs. O’Flanagan. We mustn’t forget to play. You take care of the baby, mother, and I’ll iron. And—Hilda!” with a sudden change of tone, “Look here!” for the half-warm flat-iron on the damp sheet had left a long, black smooch. “What in the world is the matter? It keeps doing it;” for Cricket tried different places, with the result of producing a smallpox of black spots. “Did you ever?”
“Perhaps the iron is too hot, and scorches it,” suggested Hilda, surveying the places critically.
“I never want to hear the word ‘scorched’ again,” said Cricket, setting down her iron with a thump. “If it’s being scorched, I shan’t iron any more. That’s one thing sure;” and Cricket hastily bundled the sheet back into the basket. Between lying on the floor and the smooches from the iron, the colour of the sheet was fast becoming African.
“It’s the queerest thing! I thought that ironing was as easy as falling off a log,” using her favourite comparison, which long experience had shown her was very easy indeed.
“When Sarah irons, she leaves smooth streaks everywhere the iron touches. I thought anybody could iron.”
“I thought anybody could fry potatoes. Cricket, what time do you suppose it is? I think it must be nearly dinner-time. Don’t you feel as if you’d been here a week?”
“Yes, a month. Don’t eat that string, Mosina. You’re as bad as Johnnie-goat.”
“And, Cricket, just suppose she shouldn’t get home before dark!”
“Oh, papa would send for us,” said Cricket, securely. “He knows we’re here. But I do wish Mrs. Brummagen would come home. I’m getting dreadfully tired of playing I’m poor. What do you want, Mosina?” picking up the plump baby that crawled up to her, pulling at her dress. She sat down on the floor, taking her little charge in her arms.
“What you get fat on, Mosina, I don’t know, unless it’s fattening not to eat much. Mosina, I used to think it would be fun to live in one room, and get your own meals, and play housekeeping, but I’ve changed my mind. When you have to live on burnt herring—”
“And stale bread,” burst in Hilda.
“And burned potatoes—”
“And iron with irons that won’t iron—”
“And have messy washing around all the time—”
“And nothing to sew with—”
“And nothing to cook with, and nothing to cook in it—”
“And only wooden chairs to sit down on—”
“And nothing to read—”
“Oh, goodness, gracious me! I do believe I won’t ever scold again at home, and say I hate things,” said Hilda, drawing a long breath. “I never thought before how perfectly horrid it would be never to have anything nice. I wonder if poor people mind it.”
“Oh, dear, I hope not!” said Cricket, looking troubled. “When I’m rich, Hilda,”—with the confidence of childhood that such a time is surely coming,—“I’ll give everything I have to poor people, so they won’t have to work so hard, and can get books to read.”
“But you couldn’t do that,” objected Hilda, practically, “for you would not have anything left for yourself, and you’d be poor. And if nobody was poor, who’d do our cooking, and all those things?”
This problem was too deep for Cricket’s troubled little brain.
“It’s a puzzle,” she sighed; then she added, brightening, “I’ll ask papa; he’ll fix it, when he’s rich. But—I don’t see why—” she pondered, struck by another thought, “why I should have a nice home and such a dear family, and books, and everything I want, and Mosina have only this little room and not much to eat. Suppose I’d happened to be Mosina, and Mosina had been me! Oh, dear! it gets worse and worse!”
And Cricket, with a sigh of puzzlement over this problem of all ages, dropped a kiss on Mosina’s placid cheek.
But Mosina, herself, suddenly put an end to the consideration of all hard questions, by setting up one of her unexpected roars, as she doubled herself up like a little jack-knife. Poor little thing! the ice-cold milk had naturally given her a severe attack of colic.
“What is the matter, baby?” cried Cricket, in dismay, cuddling Mosina in her arms, in her motherly little fashion. Mosina roared on, alternately doubling herself up and straightening herself out. Cricket and Hilda began to get thoroughly frightened.
“Cricket, she isn’t dying, is she?” whispered Hilda, trembling. Not having any brothers or sisters, she was perfectly helpless with children.
“I don’t know, but I guess not,” said Cricket, feeling rather disturbed, herself. “There, baby! hush, dear! What shall I do for you? Mercy, Hilda, she’s getting black in the face! Do go for somebody.”
“Where shall I go?” asked Hilda helplessly, wringing her hands.
“Anywhere—down-stairs—in the next room. Find somebody quickly.”
Hilda flew for the door, and ran plump into Mrs. Brummagen, who rushed in breathlessly. In a twinkling, the baby was in her arms. Mosina was holding her breath, and was purple in the face. Her mother promptly blew down her throat, and thumped her on the back, and in a moment the roar began again, but rather less vehemently. The colic was evidently passing over.
Poor little Mrs. Brummagen was in a state of excitement and apology bordering on distraction, at the idea of the young ladies staying there all day long, and taking care of Mosina all that time.
“An’ you eat—vat?” she demanded, tragically. “Der vas noding to eat. An’ you been here—four—five—six—hour!”
“We couldn’t find much to eat,” admitted Cricket, honestly. “We tried to cook the herrings, but they were rather tough, and we fried potatoes, only they wouldn’t fry. They seemed to burn, somehow.”
Mrs. Brummagen poured out a string of mingled German and English ejaculations, expressive of her distress.
“And, Mrs. Brummagen, we thought we’d help you a little and get your sheets all washed and ironed, but somehow it didn’t go right, and we made a dreadful mess of it. I guess you have to know how, if you wash and iron. It looks so easy, I thought any one could do it. The sheet is dreadfully dirty—the one we did, I mean,—and it’s all smoochy, too. Will it come out?” and Cricket shook out the damp sheet from the basket, and anxiously displayed it.
Mrs. Brummagen was more overcome than before.
“Ach, the dear chilt!” she cried. “Ya, it vill come out, ven I vash him mit soap.”
“I’m so glad,” said Cricket, greatly relieved. “Of course, mamma would have given you another one, though. Now, we must go, I think. Oh, Hilda! we forgot your cap! Mrs. Brummagen, we dressed up to play keeping house, but we were so busy doing it, that we forgot to play much.”
Mrs. Brummagen helped them on with their things, talking all the time, in her broken English, and telling them how she ought not have gone at all, and how she hardly knew what she was doing, and how she couldn’t get away sooner, and how she had worried all day about their getting something to eat.
“Never mind,” said Cricket. “We enjoyed it ever so much. Good-bye, Mosina. Bring her up on Saturday, when you come for the bundle, won’t you? Good-bye.”
It was getting well into the dusk of the short winter day, when the children arrived at home. Cricket flew into her mother’s arms and kissed her as if she had been gone six weeks.
“My little girl, where have you been, and what have you been doing? I was just sending Eliza down for you. Somebody left word at the basement door that you were going to stay at Mrs. Brummagen’s all day, but I expected you home long ago.”
“Mamma, we’ve been playing poor, and I don’t—like—it—one—bit,” said Cricket, slowly, with her head on her mother’s neck. “I always thought it would be rather fun to be poor, but it isn’t. It’s just perfectly horrid. And I’m so hungry, you can’t think! And oh, mamma dearest! suppose—just suppose—that I’d been Mrs. Brummagen’s little girl, instead of yours!”
