The Holy Cross and Other Tales Part 12

"Mother never puts an under crust in her chicken pies, and that makes 'em juicier."

Same way when they had fried pork and potatoes; Lute could not understand why the flesh of the wallowing, carnivorous western hog should n't be as white and firm and sweet as the meat of the swill-fed Yankee pig. And why were the Hubbard squashes so tasteless and why was maple syrup so very different? Yes, amid all his professional duties Lute found time to note and remark upon this and other similar things, and of course Em was--by implication, at least--held responsible for them all.

And Em did try so hard, so very hard, to correct the evils and to answer the hypercritical demands of Lute's foolishly petted and spoiled appet.i.te. She warred valorously with butchers, grocers, and hucksters; she sent down east to Mother Baker for all the famous family recipes; she wrestled in speech and in practice with that awful Hulda; she experimented long and patiently; she blistered her pretty face and burned her little hands over that kitchen range--yes, a slow, constant martyrdom that conscientious wife willingly endured for years in her enthusiastic determination to do her duty by Lute. Doughnuts, chicken-pies, boiled dinners, layer-cakes, soda biscuits, flapjacks, fish b.a.l.l.s, baked beans, squash pies, corned-beef hash, dried-apple sauce, currant wine, succotash, brown bread--how valorously Em toiled over them, only to be rewarded with some cruel reminder of how "mother"

used to do these things! It was terrible; a tedious martyrdom.

Lute--mind you--Lute was not wilfully cruel; no, he was simply and irremediably a heedless idiot of a man, just as every married man is, for a spell, at least. But it broke Em's heart, all the same.

Lute's mother came to visit them when their first child was born, and she lifted a great deal of trouble off the patient wife. Old Miss Baker always liked Em; had told the minister three years ago that she knew Em would make Lute a good Christian wife. They named the boy Moses, after the old judge who was dead, and old Miss Baker said he should have his gran'pa's watch when he got to be twenty-one.

Old Miss Baker always stuck by Em; may be she remembered how the old judge had talked once on a time about his mother's cooking. For all married men are, as I have said, idiotically cruel about that sort of thing. Yes, old Miss Baker braced Em up wonderful; brought a lot of dried catnip out west with her for the baby; taught Em how to make salt-rising bread; told her all about stewing things and broiling things and roasting things; showed her how to tell the real Yankee codfish from the counterfeit--oh, she just did Em lots of good, did old Miss Baker!

The rewards of virtue may be slow in coming, but they are sure to come.

Em's three boys--the three bouncing boys that came to Em and Lute--those three boys waxed fat and grew up boisterous, blatant appreciators of their mother's cooking. The way those boys did eat mother's doughnuts! And mother's pies--wow! Other boys--the neighbors' boys--came round regularly in troops, battalions, armies, and like a consuming fire licked up the wholesome viands which Em's skill and liberality provided for her own boys' enthusiastic playmates.

And all those boys--there must have been millions of 'em--were living, breathing, vociferous testimonials to the unapproachable excellence of Em's cooking.

Lute got into politics, and they elected him to the legislature. After the campaign, needing rest, he took it into his head to run down east to see his mother; he had not been back home for eight years. He took little Moses with him. They were gone about three weeks. Gran'ma Baker had made great preparations for them; had cooked up enough pies to last all winter, and four plump, beheaded, well-plucked, yellow-legged pullets hung stiff and solemn-like in the chill pantry off the kitchen, awaiting the last succulent scene of all.

Lute and the little boy got there late of an evening. The dear old lady was so glad to see them; the love that beamed from her kindly eyes well nigh melted the gla.s.s in her silver-bowed specks. The table was spread in the dining-room; the sheet-iron stove sighed till it seemed like to crack with the heat of that hardwood fire.

"Why, Lute, you ain't eatin' enough to keep a fly alive," remonstrated old Miss Baker, when her son declined a second doughnut; "and what ails the child?" she continued; "ha' n't he got no appet.i.te? Why, when you wuz his age, Lute, seemed as if I could n't cook doughnuts fast enough for you!"

Lute explained that both he and his little boy had eaten pretty heartily on the train that day. But all the time of their visit there poor old Gran'ma Baker wondered and worried because they did n't eat enough--seemed to her as if western folks had n't the right kind of appet.i.te. Even the plump pullets, served in a style that had made Miss Baker famed throughout those discriminating parts--even those pullets failed to awaken the expected and proper enthusiasm in the visitors.

Home again in Chicago, Lute drew his chair up to the table with an eloquent sigh of relief. As for little Moses, he clamored his delight.

"Chicken pie!" he cried, gleefully; and then he added a soulful "wow!"

as his eager eyes fell upon a plateful of hot, exuberant, voluptuous doughnuts.

"Yes, we are both glad to get back," said Lute.

"But I am afraid," suggested Em, timidly, "that gran'ma's cooking has spoiled you."

Little Moses (bless him) howled an indignant, a wrathful remonstrance.

"Gran'ma can't cook worth a cent!" said he.

Em expected Lute to be dreadfully shocked, but he was n't.

"I would n't let her know it for all the world," remarked Lute, confidentially, "but mother has lost her grip on cooking. At any rate, her cooking is n't what it used to be; it has changed."

Then Em came bravely to the rescue. "No, Lute," says she, and she meant it, "your mother's cooking has n't changed, but _you_ have. The man has grown away from the boy, and the tastes, the ways, and the delights of boyhood have no longer any fascination for the man."

"May be you 're right," said Lute. "At any rate, I 'm free to say that _your_ cooking beats the world."

Good for Lute! Virtue triumphs and my true story ends. But first an explanation to concinnate my narrative.

I should never have known this true story if Lute himself had n't told it to me at the last dinner of the Sons of New England--told it to me right before Em, that dear, patient little martyred wife of his. And I knew by the love light in Em's eyes that she was glad that she had endured that martyrdom for Lute's sake.

JOEL'S TALK WITH SANTA CLAUS

One Christmas eve Joel Baker was in a most unhappy mood. He was lonesome and miserable; the chimes making merry Christmas music outside disturbed rather than soothed him, the jingle of the sleigh-bells fretted him, and the shrill whistling of the wind around the corners of the house and up and down the chimney seemed to grate harshly on his ears.

"Humph," said Joel, wearily, "Christmas is nothin' to me; there _was_ a time when it meant a great deal, but that was long ago--fifty years is a long stretch to look back over. There is nothin' in Christmas now, nothin' for _me_ at least; it is so long since Santa Claus remembered me that I venture to say he has forgotten that there ever was such a person as Joel Baker in all the world. It used to be different; Santa Claus _used_ to think a great deal of me when I was a boy. Ah!

Christmas nowadays ain't what it was in the good old time--no, not what it used to be."

As Joel was absorbed in his distressing thoughts he became aware very suddenly that somebody was entering or trying to enter the room. First came a draft of cold air, then a sc.r.a.ping, grating sound, then a strange shuffling, and then,--yes, then, all at once, Joel saw a pair of fat legs and a still fatter body dangle down the chimney, followed presently by a long white beard, above which appeared a jolly red nose and two bright twinkling eyes, while over the head and forehead was drawn a fur cap, white with snowflakes.

"Ha, ha," chuckled the fat, jolly stranger, emerging from the chimney and standing well to one side of the hearthstone; "ha, ha, they don't have the big, wide chimneys they used to build, but they can't keep Santa Claus out--no, they can't keep Santa Claus out! Ha, ha, ha.

Though the chimney were no bigger than a gas pipe, Santa Claus would slide down it!"

It didn't require a second glance to a.s.sure Joel that the new-comer was indeed Santa Claus. Joel knew the good old saint--oh, yes--and he had seen him once before, and, although that was when Joel was a little boy, he had never forgotten how Santa Claus looked.

Nor had Santa Claus forgotten Joel, although Joel thought he had; for now Santa Claus looked kindly at Joel and smiled and said: "Merry Christmas to you, Joel!"

"Thank you, old Santa Claus," replied Joel, "but I don't believe it's going to be a very merry Christmas. It's been so long since I 've had a merry Christmas that I don't believe I 'd know how to act if I had one."

"Let's see," said Santa Claus, "it must be going on fifty years since I saw you last--yes, you were eight years old the last time I slipped down the chimney of the old homestead and filled your stocking. Do you remember it?"

"I remember it well," answered Joel. "I had made up my mind to lie awake and see Santa Claus; I had heard tell of you, but I 'd never seen you, and Brother Otis and I concluded we 'd lie awake and watch for you to come."

Santa Claus shook his head reproachfully. "That was very wrong," said he, "for I 'm so scarey that if I 'd known you boys were awake I 'd never have come down the chimney at all, and then you 'd have had no presents."

"But Otis could n't keep awake," explained Joel. "We talked about everythin' we could think of, till father called out to us that if we did n't stop talking he 'd have to send one of us up into the attic to sleep with the hired man. So in less than five minutes Otis was sound asleep and no pinching could wake him up. But _I_ was bound to see Santa Claus and I don't believe anything would 've put me to sleep. I heard the big clock in the sitting-room strike eleven, and I had begun wonderin' if you never were going to come, when all of a sudden I heard the tinkle of the bells around your reindeers' necks. Then I heard the reindeers prancin' on the roof and the sound of your sleigh-runners cuttin' through the crust and slippin' over the s.h.i.+ngles. I was kind o' scared and I covered my head up with the sheet and quilts--only I left a little hole so I could peek out and see what was goin' on. As soon as I saw you I got over bein' scared--for you were jolly and smilin' like, and you chuckled as you went around to each stockin' and filled it up."

"Yes, I can remember the night," said Santa Claus. "I brought you a sled, did n't I?"

"Yes, and you brought Otis one, too," replied Joel. "Mine was red and had 'Yankee Doodle' painted in black letters on the side; Otis' was black and had 'Snow Queen' in gilt letters."

"I remember those sleds distinctly," said Santa Claus, "for I made them specially for you boys."

"You set the sleds up against the wall," continued Joel, "and then you filled the stockin's."

"There were six of 'em, as I recollect?" said Santa Claus.

"Let me see," queried Joel. "There was mine, and Otis', and Elvira's, and Thankful's, and Susan p.r.i.c.kett's--Susan was our help, you know.

No, there were only five, and, as I remember, they were the biggest we could beg or borrer of Aunt Dorcas, who weighed nigh unto two hundred pounds. Otis and I did n't like Susan p.r.i.c.kett, and we were hopin' you 'd put a cold potato in her stockin'."

"But Susan was a good girl," remonstrated Santa Claus. "You know I put cold potatoes only in the stockin's of boys and girls who are bad and don't believe in Santa Claus."

"At any rate," said Joel, "you filled all the stockin's with candy and pop-corn and nuts and raisins, and I can remember you said you were afraid you 'd run out of pop-corn b.a.l.l.s before you got around. Then you left each of us a book. Elvira got the best one, which was 'The Garland of Frien's.h.i.+p,' and had poems in it about the bleeding of hearts, and so forth. Father was n't expectin' anything, but you left him a new pair of mittens, and mother got a new fur boa to wear to meetin'."

"Of course," said Santa Claus, "I never forgot father and mother."

"Well, it was as much as I could do to lay still," continued Joel, "for I 'd been longin' for a sled, an' the sight of that red sled with 'Yankee Doodle' painted on it jest made me wild. But, somehow or other, I began to get powerful sleepy all at once, and I could n't keep my eyes open. The next thing I knew Otis was nudgin' me in the ribs.

'Git up, Joel,' says he; 'it's Chris'mas an' Santa Claus has been here.' 'Merry Christ'mas! Merry Chris'mas!' we cried as we tumbled out o' bed. Then Elvira an' Thankful came in, not more 'n half dressed, and Susan came in, too, an' we just made Rome howl with 'Merry Chris'mas! Merry Chris'mas!' to each other. 'Ef you children don't make less noise in there,' cried father, 'I'll hev to send you all back to bed.' The idea of askin' boys an' girls to keep quiet on Chris'mas mornin' when they 've got new sleds an' 'Garlands of Frien's.h.i.+p'!"