Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/85

"Not at all. It was the plain truth coarsely told. Oh, how much I would then have given for mammy's faculties—my servants', Anne! There was no alternative, and I was obliged to go on, with the consciousness that I should be as useless in my own home as at the log-hut. However, I had health and unimpaired strength, and the cheerfulness they generate. I was beginning to profit by the lessons of necessity, 'our sternest teacher and our best!' There were no domestic labourers to be obtained. I cannot describe to you my woful condition, nor my family's, when we were first reduced to depending on my culinary skill. Oh, how I broiled over my first beefsteak, dropped it in the ashes, and blistered my fingers, my poor husband standing by the while sympathizing and laughing; my potatoes I served as hard as they were dug out of the earth! The first day we borrowed bread from my husband's farmer, our only neighbour; the next, mammy not coming, I was compelled to make some. I was ashamed to ask directions of our neighbour Mrs. Stone; I thought it must be a simple operation, and I knew, as I supposed, the materials of which it was composed. I kneaded and baked it, after calling my husband from important business to heat and clear my oven. Anne, you would have pitied my consternation if you had seen me when I drew the bread from the oven. It was as solid and as heavy as a brickbat. I cried, my husband laughed, his patience was inexhaustible; I then laughed too, threw away my bread, tied my right arm in a sling, sent for Mrs. Stone, and said, 'You see my condition—will you mix some bread for me?' She set about it with alacrity; I watched