The Long Ago | Page 6

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 to go with it.
But brown sugar stood alone - sticky, heavy, crumbly lumps that held together until a fellow could tip back his head and drop one of the chunks in his mouth.
And after school grandmother could be persuaded to cut a full-size slice of bread (thick) and spread it with butter (thick) and you'd start away with it (quick) - just nibbling at one edge, not really biting - and you'd sneak into the dark place under the stairs (or into the pantry) - and reach deep down into the white sugar barrel - and grab a handful - and