Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper | Page 7

too much for her imagination. Her
mind had taken no note of time, and two hours passed with the rapidity
of a few minutes.
"I don't exactly comprehend this," said my husband, as he sat down
with his old friend, to dine off of broiled steak and potatoes, at half-past
two o'clock.
"It's all the fault of the, 'Wandering Jew!'" I replied, making an effort to
drive away, with a smile, the red signs of mortification that were in my
face.
"The Wandering Jew!" returned my husband, looking mystified.
"Yes, the fault lies with that imaginary personage," said I, "strange as it
may seem." And then I related the mishaps of the morning. For desert,
we had some preserved fruit and cream, and a hearty laugh over the
burnt puddings and disfigured turkey.
Poor Kitty couldn't survive the mortification. She never smiled again in
my house; and, at the close of the week, removed to another home.
CHAPTER III.
LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT.

"THE oil's out, mum," said Hannah, the domestic who succeeded Kitty,

pushing her head into the room where I sat sewing.
"It can't be," I replied.
"Indade, mum, and it is. There isn't the full of a lamp left," was the
positive answer.
"Then, what have you done with it?" said I, in a firm voice. "It isn't four
days since a gallon was sent home from the store."
"Four days! It's more nor a week, mum!"
"Don't tell me that, Hannah," I replied, firmly; "for I know better. I was
out on last Monday, and told Brown to send us home a gallon."
"Sure, and it's burned, mum, thin! What else could go with it?"
"It never was burned in our lamps," said I, in answer to this. "You've
either wasted it, or given it away."
At this Hannah, as in honor bound, became highly indignant, and
indulged in certain impertinences which I did not feel inclined to
notice.
But, as the oil was all gone, and no mistake; and, as the prospect of
sitting in darkness was not, by any means, an agreeable one--the only
remedy was to order another gallon.
Something was wrong; that was clear. The oil had never been burned.
That evening, myself and husband talked over the matter, and both of
us came to the conclusion, that it would never do. The evil must be
remedied. A gallon of oil must not again disappear in four days.
"Why," said my husband, "it ought to last us at least a week and a half."
"Not quite so long," I replied. "We burn a gallon a week."
"Not fairly, I'm inclined to think. But four days is out of all

conscience."
I readily assented to this, adding some trite remark about the
unconscionable wastefulness of domestics.
On the next morning, as my husband arose from bed, he shivered in the
chilly air, saying, as he did so:
"That girl's let the fire go out again in the heater! Isn't it too bad? This
thing happens now every little while. I'm sure I've said enough to her
about it. There's nothing wanted but a little attention."
"It is too bad, indeed," I added.
"There's that fishy smell again!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. "What can it
be?"
"Fishy smell! So there is."
"Did you get any mackerel from the store yesterday?"
"None."
"Perhaps Hannah ordered some?"
"No. I had a ham sent home, and told her to have a slice of that broiled
for breakfast."
"I don't know what to make of it. Every now and then that same smell
comes up through the register--particularly in the morning. I'll bet a
sixpence there's some old fish tub in the cellar of which she's made
kindling."
"That may be it," said I.
And, for want of a better reason, we agreed, for the time being, upon
that hypothesis.
At the end of another four days, word came up that our best sperm oil,

for which we paid a dollar and forty cents a gallon, was out again.
"Impossible!" I ejaculated.
"But it is mum," said Hannah. "There's not a scrimption left--not so
much as the full of a thimble."
"You must be mistaken. A gallon of oil has never been burned in this
house in four days."
"We burned the other gallon in four days," said Hannah, with
provoking coolness. "The evenings are very long, and we have a great
many lights. There's the parlor light, and the passage light, and the--"
"It's no use for you to talk, Hannah," I replied, interrupting her. "No use
in the world. A gallon of oil in four days has never gone by fair means
in this house. So don't try to make me believe it--for I won't. I'm too old
a housekeeper for that."
Finding that I was not to be