The Treasure | Page 8

own volition, not really discharged; simply she was gone. A Norwegian girl came next, a good-natured, blundering creature whose English was just enough to utterly confuse herself and everyone else. Freda's mistakes were not half so funny in the making as Alexandra made them in anecdotes afterward; and Freda was given to weird chanting, accompanying herself with a banjo, throughout the evenings. Finally a blonde giant known as "Freda's cousin" came to see her, and Kane Salisbury, followed by his elated and excited boys, had to eject Freda's cousin early in the evening, while Freda wept and chattered to the ladies of the house. After that the cousin called often to ask for her, but Freda had vanished the day after this event, and the Salisburys never heard of her again.
They tried another Norwegian, then a Polack, then a Scandinavian. Then they had a German man and wife for a week, a couple who asserted that they would work, without pay, for a good home. This was a most uncomfortable experience, unsuccessful from the first instant. Then came a low-voiced, good-natured South American negress, Marthe, not much of a cook, but willing and strong.
July was mercilessly hot that year, thirty-one burning days of sunshine. Mrs. Salisbury was not a very strong woman, and she had a great many visitors to entertain. She kept Marthe, because the colored woman did not resent constant supervision, and an almost hourly change of plans. Mrs. Salisbury did almost all of the cooking herself, fussing for hours in the hot kitchen over the cold meats and salads and ices that formed the little informal cold suppers to which the Salisburys loved to ask their friends on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Alexandra helped fitfully. She would put her pretty head into the kitchen doorway, perhaps to find her mother icing cake.
"Listen, Mother; I'm going over to Con's. She's got that new serve down to a fine point! And I've done the boys' room and the guest room; it's all ready for the Cutters. And I put towels and soap in the bathroom, only you'll have to have Marthe wipe up the floor and the tub."
"You're a darling child," the mother would say gratefully.
"Darling nothing!" And Sandy, with her protest, would lay a cool cheek against her mother's hot one. "Do you have to stay out here, Mother?" she would ask resentfully. "Can't the Culled Lady do this?"
"Well, I left her to watch it, and it burned," Mrs. Salisbury would say, "so now it has to be pared and frosted. Such a bother! But this is the very last thing, dear. You run along; I'll be out of here in two minutes!"
But it was always something more than two minutes. Sometimes even Kane Salisbury was led to protest.
"Can't we eat less, dear? Or differently? Isn't there some simple way of managing this week-end supper business? Now, Brewer--Brewer manages it awfully well. He has his man set out a big cold roast or two, cheese, and coffee, and a bowlful of salad, and beer. He'll get a fruit pie from the club sometimes, or pastries, or a pot of marmalade--"
"Yes, indeed, we must try to simplify," Mrs. Salisbury would agree brightly. But after such a conversation as this she would go over her accounts very soberly indeed. "Roasts--cheeses--fruit pies!" she would say bitterly to herself. "Why is it that a man will spend as much on a single lunch for his friends as a woman is supposed to spend on her table for a whole week, and then ask her what on earth she has done with her money!"
"Kane, I wish you would go over my accounts," she said one evening, in desperation. "Just suggest where you would cut down!"
Mr. Salisbury ran his eye carelessly over the pages of the little ledger.
"Roast beef, two-forty?" he presently read aloud, questioningly.
"Twenty-two cents a pound," his wife answered simply. But the man's slight frown deepened.
"Too much--too much!" he said, shaking his head.
Mrs. Salisbury let him read on a moment, turn a page or two. Then she said, in a dead calm:
"Do you think my roasts are too big, Kane?"
"Too big? On the contrary," her husband answered briskly, "I like a big roast. Sometimes ours are skimpy-looking before they're even cut!"
"Well!" Mrs. Salisbury said triumphantly.
Her smile apprised her husband that he was trapped, and he put down the account book in natural irritation.
"Well, my dear, it's your problem!" he said unsympathetically, returning to his newspaper. "I run my business, I expect you to run yours! If we can't live on our income, we'll have to move to a cheaper house, that's all, or take Stanford out of school and put him to work. Dickens says somewhere--and he never said a truer thing!" pursued the man of the house comfortably, "that, if you spend