The Farm-House Kitchen Page #2

"The Farm-House Kitchen" by Sarah Orne Jewett is a charming exploration of rural life and domesticity in 19th-century New England. Through rich descriptions and thoughtful anecdotes, Jewett captures the essence of farm life, emphasizing the importance of home-cooked meals and the connections formed around the kitchen table. The book intertwines recipes with personal reflections and stories, celebrating both the culinary traditions and the simple joys of country living. With a focus on community and the nurturing aspects of cooking, Jewett's work showcases the heart of farmhouse kitchens as places of warmth, creativity, and togetherness.

• Short story

								


"She's a proper cosset, ain't she?" inquired Mrs. Martin approvingly,
while Mrs. Jake asked about the candles, which gave a clear light. "Be
they the last you run?" she inquired, but was answered to the
contrary, and a brisk conversation followed upon the proper
proportions of tallow and bayberry wax, and the dangers of the
new-fangled oils which the village shop-keepers were attempting to
introduce. Sperm oil was growing more and more dear in price and
worthless in quality, and the old-fashioned lamps were reported to be
past their usefulness.

"I must own I set most by good candle light," said Mrs. Martin. "'T is
no expense to speak of where you raise the taller, and it's cheerful
and bright in winter time. In old times when the houses were draftier
they was troublesome about flickering, candles was; but land! think
how comfortable we live now to what we used to! Stoves is such a
convenience; the fire's so much handier. Housekeepin' don't begin to
be the trial it was once."

"I must say I like old-fashioned cookin' better than oven cookin',"
observed Mrs. Jake. "Seems to me's if the taste of things was all
drawed up chimbly. Be you going to do much for Thanksgivin', Mis'
Thacher? I 'spose not;" and moved by a sudden kind impulse, she added,
"Why can't you and John jine with our folks? 't wouldn't put us out,
and 'twill be lonesome for ye."

"'T won't be no lonesomer than last year was, nor the year before,"
and Mrs. Thacher's face quivered a little as she rose and took one of
the candles, and opened the trap door that covered the cellar stairs.
"Now don't ye go to makin' yourself work," cried the guests. "No,
don't! we ain't needin' nothin'; we was late about supper." But their
hostess stepped carefully down and disappeared for a few minutes,
while the cat hovered anxiously at the edge of the black pit.

"I forgot to ask ye if ye'd have some cider?" a sepulchral voice asked
presently; "but I don't know now's I can get at it. I told John I
shouldn't want any whilst he was away, and so he ain't got the spiggit
in yet," to which Mrs. Jake and Mrs. Martin both replied that they
were no hands for that drink, unless 't was a drop right from the
press, or a taste o' good hard cider towards the spring of the year;
and Mrs. Thacher soon returned with some slices of cake in a plate and
some apples held in her apron. One of her neighbors took the candle as
she reached up to put it on the floor, and when the trap door was
closed again all three drew up to the table and had a little feast.
The cake was of a kind peculiar to its maker, who prided herself upon
never being without it; and there was some trick of her hand or a
secret ingredient which was withheld when she responded with apparent
cheerfulness to requests for its recipe. As for the apples, they were
grown upon an old tree, one of whose limbs had been grafted with some
unknown variety of fruit so long ago that the history was forgotten;
only that an English gardener, many years before, had brought some
cuttings from the old country, and one of them had somehow come into
the possession of John Thacher's grandfather when grafted fruit was a
thing to be treasured and jealously guarded. It had been told that
when the elder Thacher had given away cuttings he had always stolen to
the orchards in the night afterward and ruined them. However, when the
family had grown more generous in later years it had seemed to be
without avail, for, on their neighbors' trees or their own, the
English apples had proved worthless. Whether it were some favoring
quality in that spot of soil or in the sturdy old native tree itself,
the rich golden apples had grown there, year after year, in
perfection, but nowhere else.

"There ain't no such apples as these, to my mind," said Mrs. Martin,
as she polished a large one with her apron and held it up to the
light, and Mrs. Jake murmured assent, having already taken a
sufficient first bite.

"There's only one little bough that bears any great," said Mrs.
Thacher, "but it's come to that once before, and another branch has
shot up and been likely as if it was a young tree."

The good souls sat comfortably in their splint-bottomed,
straight-backed chairs, and enjoyed this mild attempt at a festival.
Mrs. Thacher even grew cheerful and responsive, for her guests seemed
so light-hearted and free from care that the sunshine of their
presence warmed her own chilled and fearful heart. They embarked upon
a wide sea of neighborhood gossip and parish opinions, and at last
some one happened to speak again of Thanksgiving, which at once turned
the tide of conversation, and it seemed to ebb suddenly, while the
gray, dreary look once more overspread Mrs. Thacher's face.

"I don't see why you won't keep with our folks this year; you and
John," once more suggested Mrs. Martin. "'T ain't wuth while to be
making yourselves dismal here to home; the day'll be lonesome for you
at best, and you shall have whatever we've got and welcome."

"'T won't be lonesomer this year than it was last, nor the year
before that, and we've stood it somehow or 'nother," answered Mrs.
Thacher for the second time, while she rose to put more wood in the
stove. "Seems to me 't is growing cold; I felt a draught acrost my
shoulders. These nights is dreadful chill; you feel the damp right
through your bones. I never saw it darker than 't was last evenin'. I
thought it seemed kind o' stived up here in the kitchen, and I opened
the door and looked out, and I declare I couldn't see my hand before
me."

"It always kind of scares me these black nights," said Mrs. Jake Dyer.
"I expect something to clutch at me every minute, and I feel as if
some sort of a creatur' was travelin' right behind me when I am out
door in the dark. It makes it bad havin' a wanin' moon just now when
the fogs hangs so low. It al'ays seems to me as if 't was darker when
she rises late towards mornin' than when she's gone altogether. I do'
know why't is."

"I rec'lect once," Mrs. Thacher resumed, "when Ad'line was a baby and
John was just turned four year old, their father had gone down river
in the packet, and I was expectin' on him home at supper time, but he
didn't come; 't was late in the fall, and a black night as I ever see.
Ad'line was taken with something like croup, and I had an end o'
candle in the candlestick that I lighted, and 't wa'n't long afore it
was burnt down, and I went down cellar to the box where I kep' 'em,
and if you will believe it, the rats had got to it, and there wasn't a
week o' one left. I was near out anyway. We didn't have this
cook-stove then, and I cal'lated I could make up a good lively blaze,
so I come up full o' scold as I could be, and then I found I'd burnt
up all my dry wood. You see, I thought certain he'd be home and I was
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