Of all these occupations, cooking, I observe, ranks the highest. That is sure of attention: the others take their chance. That is cut out of the whole cloth: the others get the odds and ends. I have observed also, in this connection, that the day in-doors resolves itself into three grand crises, called the three meals. It is surprising, it is really wonderful, the way these are brought about with every thing else going on beside. Indeed, this prying into domestic affairs has made me surprised twice. First, at the amount of physical labor a woman has to perform; second, that she can carry so many things on her mind at one time, or rather that her mind can act in so many directions at one time, and so quickly. This in-doors work seems commonplace enough; to the fastidious, repugnant even. The same may be said of a mud-puddle. But dip up a dipperful of the mud, examine it closely, and you will find it teeming with life. So, examine an hourful of household work, and you will find it all alive with plans, contrivances, forethoughts, afterthoughts, happy thoughts, and countless trifling experiences, minute, it may be, but full of animation. The puddle is often set in commotion by a passing breeze, or by a stone dropping in. Well, household work, too, has its breezes of hurry and flurry, besides its regular trade-winds, which blow morning, noon, and night. And, if company unexpected isn’t like the stone dropping in, then what is it like? This is written, as the scientific people say, from observations taken on the spot. One day I spent an hour in watching Mrs. Fennel at her work, and an hour in watching Mr. Fennel at his. Being in a humorous as well as a scientific frame of mind, I played they were my specimens, and that the matter under consideration really did belong to some branch of science, unknown, of course, to a country schoolmaster. I copy from my note-book:-- “Time, forenoon; place, kitchen. “Fly, my pencil, fly, like Mrs. Fennel’s feet! Dinner is getting. It seems now as if every moment were a crisis. What’s that she is dropping into hot water? Oh! turnip, sliced and peeled. Meat, pudding, potatoes, squash, beans, &c., require, I see, different lengths of time in the cooking. But they must be on the table at twelve o’clock, done just right; some of them mashed, and all of them hot. Think of the calculation necessary to bring this about! Meanwhile, in the intervals of lifting the pot-lid, Gussy’s new suit is being ‘cut out of old.’ And here, again, calculation--that is, _mind_--is required in cutting the cloth to advantage. [Illustration]