"And neither will you. You can take your own time and I'll do the
hurrying. I only have two suppers to hand out this evening, but I bet
you in a week I'll be feeding a dozen men and they'll like it and pay
me well and before you know it we'll be rich and we can have lots
better food ourselves and even keep a servant."
"A servant! Heavens, Judith, not a wasteful servant!"
"No indeed, Mother, a saving one--one who will save us many steps and
give me time to make more money than you can save. I'll give them
fried chicken this evening and hashed brown potatoes and hot rolls and
plum jam and buttermilk. The radishes are up and big enough to eat and
so are the young onions. All conductors eat onions. They do it to keep
people from standing on the back platform. I am certainly glad the
line came through our place and we have a stop so near us. I'll have
to order a dozen baskets with nice, neat covers and big enough to hold
plates and cups and saucers. Thank goodness we have enough china to go
around what with the Buck leavings and the Knight savings. I'm going
to get some five and ten cent store silver and a great gross of paper
napkins. I tell you, Mother, I'm going to do this up in style."
Mrs. Buck groaned out something about waste and sadly began paring
potatoes, although it was then quite early in the forenoon and the
trolleymen's supper was not to be served until six-thirty.
"That child'll wear herself out," she said, not to herself but to an
old blue hen who was scratching around the hollyhocks, clucking
loudly. The hen had a motherly air, having launched so many families,
and Mrs. Buck felt instinctively she might sympathize with her.
"Thank goodness I ain't got but one to worry about," she continued as
the repeated clucks brought Old Blue's brood around her. "Now just
look at that poor old hen! I wonder if she'd rather be a hen and have
so many large families to raise or if she wishes she'd been a rooster
and maybe been fried in her youth."
Deep thinking was too much for Mrs. Buck. She stopped peeling potatoes
and fell into a brown study. The side porch was a pleasant place to
sit and dream. Judith had sorted out her wares and stored them in the
back of her blue car. She had caught two chickens and dressed them
and set a sponge for the hot rolls. She had promised herself the
pleasure of serving the motorman and conductor a trial supper whose
excellence she was sure would bring in dozens of orders.
A whirr from the barn and in a moment Judith was off and away, leaving
a cloud of dust behind her.
"No hurry about the potatoes!" she called as she passed the house, and
then her voice trailed off with, "I'll be back by and by."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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