Читать книгу The Pie and the Pirate - Albert Lee - Страница 3

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The broad windows of the spacious, old-fashioned, tile-floored kitchen were wide open to the gentle June breeze that blew in from the garden and got itself all tangled up in the somewhat disheveled locks of a very pretty young woman, apparently busily engaged in some sort of culinary operation. Over her dainty summer frock she wore a big apron; her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, and her arms were spattered with flour. Every minute or two she knelt before the stove, opened the oven door, glanced within, frowned, slammed the door back again, and then stamped her foot impatiently as she glanced quickly up at the clock. There was obviously some connection between the flight of time and her efforts at baking.

Between peeps into the oven she would rush to the kitchen door and gaze down the flower-bordered path as far as she could see—as far as the turn where it disappeared behind a great bush of bobbing hydrangeas. Satisfied with her inspection, she would rush back to the oven, and again look eagerly in upon her undertaking.

At length she seemed satisfied with the conditions observed, and protecting her hand with her apron, she reached into the stove and pulled out—a pie. It was a large, fat, bulging pie, a sort of mansard-roof pie; and from the speed with which she set it down upon the floor, it was unquestionably a very hot pie. She thrust the tips of her little pink fingers into her mouth, frowned once again, and then proceeded hastily to close all the drafts and the dampers.

Another swift glance down the path, and back she went to the pie. She picked it up, carried it over to the ice-box, and set it directly upon the ice. Then bang! went the door of the ice-box, there was a flutter of skirts, and bang! went the door of the kitchen, as this very pretty young woman rushed away and pattered rapidly up-stairs to her own room.

Almost immediately, however, she returned, and with unrelaxed vigilance made it her duty to scan the suspected path once more before proceeding about her business. In one hand she carried a bundle, consisting apparently of a number of small, heavy objects, done up in a handkerchief; in the other she held a bottle of liquid glue. These she placed upon the kitchen table and again sought the pie. It was not quite so cool as she would have liked to find it, but placing the pie upon the table, she took up a sharp knife and began slowly to remove the top crust. The next step in the odd procedure was to scrape out into a bowl all the luscious fruit that had been baked in the pie. Then she took this delicacy outside, and dumped it into the refuse-barrel without so much as the quiver of an eyelash. The bottom crust was then thrust into the oven, scraped slightly afterward, that it might be as dry as possible, and sprinkled with a bit of flour. A round piece of oiled paper, already prepared, was then laid upon it, and over this a neatly folded white handkerchief.

After one more furtive and breathless inspection of the path, the young woman untied her little bundle. There was a string of pearls; there were two large diamond brooches; other pieces of exquisite design, many of them unquestionably antique; fully ten rings set with brilliant stones in varied style; two gold chains, one set with diamonds; little pins, big pins.

With the greatest of care, our eccentric pastry-cook placed all these jewels carefully upon the bottom crust of the pie, winding and piling them in such a way that they fitted perfectly under the upper crust, when she finally adjusted that. She thereupon opened the pot of glue, and with a keen knife smeared the under edges of the crusts sufficiently to fasten these tightly together.

“When it dries,” she murmured with conviction, “it will certainly look like melted sugar.” Then she quickly set the pie in the bottom of the ice-box, and hid the glue pot in the closet.

In less than two minutes the gravel path crunched under approaching footsteps, and presently a rotund figure, topped with a dusky, smiling face, appeared slowly from behind the hydrangeas, carrying on one arm a basket full of parcels and waving greenery.

“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, Miss Barbara,” exclaimed the old colored woman, “you ain’t been a-hangin’ round my kitchen all de time I been in de village a-doin’ yo’ errands!”

“No, indeed, ’Mandy,” laughed the girl. “I have not been hanging round your kitchen; I’ve been hustling round it. I’ve made a pie.”

“Ain’t I tole you a hunnerd times, chile, dose han’s o’ yours ain’t ’tended fo’ to make no pie? Can’t I make pies good enough fo’ you-all?”

“Indeed you can, ’Mandy,” replied the girl, smiling, and backing into the kitchen in advance of the panting old servant; “but I wanted to bake a pie myself to-day; and I knew you would make such a fuss about it that I waited until you had gone to market.”

“You mus’ a’ made a pretty quick pie,” commented ’Mandy, glancing about at the orderly condition of her kitchen.

“Well, it’s all done now, anyway,” proceeded Barbara, quickly, “and this afternoon I am going to take it down to old Mrs. Parsons.”

’Mandy laughed outright. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ ag’in’ yo’ pies, Miss Barbara,” she finally observed; “but pore ole Miss Parsons she can’t eat no pies, nohow.”

Barbara was tempted to add that the amiable old invalid certainly would not be able to eat that one; but she merely chuckled at the bottling up of her own secret, and slipped out into the sunshine, leaving ’Mandy to set about the preparation of the midday meal.