The Long Ago | Page 6

any
white-and-gold delivery wagon, either. It was delivered by a
round-faced, rosy-checked, gingham-gowned picture of health, whose
apron-strings barely met around the middle - for Frau Hummel brought
it herself - after having first milked the cows with her own hands and
wielded the churning-stick with her own stout German arms. She had
the butter all covered up with fresh, sweet, white-linen cloths-and
hand-moulded into big rolls - each roll wrapped in its own immaculate
cloth - and when that cloth was slowly pulled away so that grandmother
could stick the point of a knife in the butter and test it on her tongue,
you could see the white salt all over the roll - and even the imprint of
the cloth-threads . . . Good? . . . Why, you could eat it without bread!
"What else have you got today, Mrs. Hummel?" (Grandmother never
could say "Frau" - and as if she didn't know what else was in the
basket!)
"Vell, Mrs. Van, dere is meppe some eks, und a dook - und also dere is
left von fine stuffed geese."

So the cloth covering was rolled farther back - and the 3-dozen eggs
were gently taken out and put in the old tin eggbucket - and just then
grandfather came in and lifted tenderly out of the basket one of those
wonderful geese "stuffed" with good food in a dark cellar until fat
enough for market. . . . Ever have a toothful of that kind of goose-breast
or second joint? . . . No? . . . Your life is yet incomplete - you have
something to live for! . . . Goodness me! I can't describe it! How can a
fellow tell about such things! It's like - well, it's like Frau Hummel's
"stuffed" goose, that's all! . . .
And then it was weighed on the old balances, steels - (no, I don't mean
scales!) - steelyards, you know - a long-armed affair with a pear-shape
of iron at one end and a hook at the other and a handle somewhere in
between at the center-of-gravity, or some such place. . . . Anyway, they
gave an honest pound, which is perhaps another respect in which they
were different.
Then the ducks, too, were unwrapped from their white cloths and
weighed - usually a pair of them - and the old willow basket had
nothing left but its bundle of cloths when Frau Hummel started out
again on her 10-mile walk to the farm.
Whenever I see a glassy-eyed, feather-headed, cold-storage chicken
half plucked and discolored hanging in a present-day butcher-shop
accumulating dust - or a scrawny duck almost popping through its skin
- I think of Frau Hummel and her willow basket. . . .
But Frau Hummel isn't here now - and they don't build ducks and geese
like hers any more - and her old willow basket is probably in some
collection while we use these machine-made things that fall to pieces
when you accidentally stub your toe against them in the cellar. . . . We
are hurrying along so fast that we don't see anything until it's cooked
and served. . . . We just use the phone and let them send us any old
thing that they can charge on a bill. . . . But in those days grandfather
and grandmother inspected everything - and it just had to be good - and
there weren't any trusts - or eggs of various grades from just eggs to
strictly fresh eggs and on down to eggs guaranteed to boil without
crowing. Every Frau Hummel in the country wanted the Van Alstyne

trade - and Frau Hummel knew it - and she never brought anything to
that back kitchen door unless it was perfect of its kind.
No wonder grandfather lived to be 92 and grandmother 86 - in good
health and spirits to the last!

The Sugar Barrels

Do you remember the three barrels of sugar in the dark place under the
stairs - or were they in the big pantry just off the kitchen?
Well, anyway, there were three, you recollect - two of white and one of
brown.
Always the brown sugar - and each Autumn the same colloquy:
"Mr. Van, don't you think we can get along without the brown sugar
this year?"
"Now, Mrs. Van, you've got to have a little brown sugar in the house -
and it comes cheaper by the barrel."
"Yes, so it does, Mr. Van . . . . . We can use it, I suppose, in
something . . . . . And we always have had it, and . . . . . Well, do as you
think best."
White sugar was good when you had something