"Really!" responded Ruey, her pride touched in an instant--there it was, he actually thought he knew more about cooking than she did--"and pray how do you happen to be so wise? You must have a.s.sisted your mother in the kitchen," she said, with a slight curl of her pretty lip. "Up there in the country, boys do those things, I suppose."

Philip was nettled. Ruey had cast little slurs on his country home before, when she got her spirit up. He controlled himself, however, only saying:

"I don't profess to understand the science of cookery, but I do know a little chemistry, and understand that an acid requires an alkali to neutralize it."

Mrs. Thorne went straight to the kitchen--shutting the door after her with the least perceptible bang--and sprinkled a liberal allowance of soda into the batter, and then returned to the dining-room to await developments. These cakes were yellow and spotted, and savoured of hot lye. Mr. Thorne went bravely through a few mouthfuls until he encountered a lump of soda; the wry face that followed was wholly involuntary.

"I declare they are horrid!" exclaimed Ruey, bursting into tears. "I knew soda would spoil them, bitter stuff!"

Mr. Thorne did not then attempt to show why soda would not spoil them, if properly used; grieved at his wife's distress, and becoming hygienical, he said:

"Don't have anything more to do with these wretched things. They are unwholesome anyway, and we are better off without them. Give them up."

"Never!" said Ruey, resolutely. When Ruey spoke in that way, Philip knew she meant it, and he sighed at the prospect of discordant breakfasts through a series of experiments. A text about "A dinner of herbs" floated through his mind as he walked abstractedly toward his store.

After Mrs. Thorne had dried her tears she walked to the kitchen, and with her own hands sc.r.a.ped that acid, alkaline mess into the drain.

"Buckwheat cakes are very mysterious and trying things," she remarked to herself, "but I shall never give up till I can make them like Philip's mother's."

"I find," said Mr. Thorne that evening, "that I must start to-morrow morning for New York, and will need a very early breakfast. Let Joanna just make me a cup of coffee. No cakes, remember," he laughingly added. "You may have a whole week to experiment upon them in my absence."

Ruey watched him down the street in the gray dawn of the next morning as he hurried to the depot, and a bright idea came into her head.

Why not take a little trip on her own account? She might run up to father Thorne's; why not be visiting as well as moping here alone?

She wished she had thought of it and mentioned it to Philip, but it was better not; he would probably have thought she could not go so far alone, but what was a day's journey when it could all be accomplished before dark; then it was going to be a bright day, she could see that by the rosy flush in the east; just the day for a journey. Besides, Philip could not go to visit them this winter, and how delighted they would be to have her come and break up the monotony of their lives. She glanced at the clock; only six o'clock; she would have ample time to get ready for the eight o'clock train, the dress she had on would do to travel in--just slip her black cashmere into her satchel, and she was ready. Yes, she would go.

Artful Ruey! Down in her heart she had a secret reason for this visit, that did not come up to the surface with the others. She wanted to know exactly how Philip's mother made those cakes. She could not be happy until she succeeded. Here appeared an old trait of the girl Ruey--almost a fault: settled persistency in accomplishing her ends, a determination to walk over all obstacles, however large.

It took much lively stirring about to accomplish it, but the house was put in order, and Mrs. Thorne reached the depot in time for the eight o'clock train; the happy Joanna being dismissed to her home for a week, after carrying her mistress's satchel to the depot. Mrs.

Thorne had visited the old homestead with her husband at the time of their marriage, and looked forward with real pleasure at the prospect before her.

"Won't they be surprised, though, to see me coming without Philip,"

and then she smiled to think how she was whizzing along in one direction, and Philip in another, while he thought her snug at home.

There was a spice of adventure about this going off by herself that she enjoyed exceedingly.

There is no more delightful place to step into, than the home of two old people, who are young, and who love you; they have their "hearts at leisure," can take time to pet you, and are interested in the smallest details of your lives. Philip's father and mother belonged to this type; the juices of their natures were not dried up. They received Ruey with open arms, and followed her about with their eyes, apparently fearing she would vanish as unexpectedly as she had appeared--"Philip's wife" caring enough about them to come so far to see them in the middle of winter, all alone, too--not many daughters-in-law like that. They hung upon her words, and brought out the choicest of everything and urged it upon her. At bed-time mother Thorne came up to "tuck her up," "just as I did Philip twenty years ago," she said; then the sweet old face bent over Ruey's for a moment and left a goodnight kiss, and "The Lord bless and keep you, dear child." Ruey's heart went out to her, and from that hour Philip's mother was her mother.

Breakfast was all ready the next morning when she came down, and she sat in Philip's old seat, and the sun looked in at the east window, and a stray ray fell upon her, and burnished the gold of her hair, so that she looked more like an angel than ever to those dear old eyes.

How happy they were--Philip's other self in that vacant chair.

Moreover, she ate those famous cakes. It was all true, they were brown; they were thin and delicate, and light and sweet, and tender, the most delicious morsels, with the amber maple syrup, that she had ever tasted. She must confess it to herself, they were better than her mother's; city people could not concoct such amazing cakes as these; then the fragrant golden b.u.t.ter, how she wished poor Philip were there to get some of all these good things.

She had not proposed that her mother-in-law should know that there was anything in the universe that she was ignorant of in the housekeeping line, but now she resolved to lay down all her pride and learn whatever she could, so she followed mother Thorne as she trotted in and out from pantry to kitchen, initiating herself into the mysteries of this and that dish, and storing up many a lesson of housewifely skill. It all came out after a little; the struggle she had been through with those "horrible cakes." Father Thorne laughed until the tears came, to hear his pretty daughter-in-law naively narrate her many grievous failures in that line, enlarging not a little on Philip's wry faces, when he tried to eat her cakes to save her feelings. She had confessed it all, now she felt free to watch the process of "setting the cakes" and to ask all the questions she pleased.

"What made mine so horribly bitter once?" she asked.

"Why, you put too much yeast in, I suppose."

"I only put in a teacupful," said Ruey.

Then mother Thorne shook her sides with laughter, as she said:

"Why, child, that ought to make cakes enough for two dozen people; you only need about two table-spoonfuls for the quant.i.ty you would make."

"What made them run all over creation when I left them by the fire to rise?"

"Why, maybe you didn't have room enough for them to rise, and they must go somewhere, you know."

"What made them sour?"

"They stood too long after they got light, before they were baked.

Very likely they would have raised in time, if you had left them on the table, say."

"What do you do when they are sour?" asked Ruey.

"Put in a little soda."

"I did. I put soda in, and you never saw such looking things as they were, yellow and spotted, and ugh! how they tasted. Philip nearly choked himself on one of the lumps of soda in his cake."

"Don't you know," said mother Thorne, indulging in another laugh, "that you must not put in but a little, and you must dissolve that in a spoonful of warm water and then stir it in?"

Ruey studied those cakes as thoroughly as she ever had a problem, or a French verb. She insisted on setting them at night, and baking them every morning during her stay, and she was finally p.r.o.nounced an adept in the work. This was not all she did. She put new life in the silent old house, sung all her songs, read the newspapers aloud, made a cap for mother Thorne, and a marvellous tidy for the best chair, besides telling them all about Philip, as if she could tell them anything new. But the pleasant visit must come to an end: it was almost time for Philip's return.

"Daughter, I am really afraid to have you set out this morning," Mr.

Thorne said on the day that Ruey had fixed upon for her return. "It has been snowing hard all night, and if it keeps on at this rate the railroads will be blocked up."

"Oh, father! I must start; Philip will be home to-night, and what will he think if he does not find me there?" Ruey said eagerly.

"Better," said the wise old father, "better stay and telegraph to Ralph."

"Oh, no, indeed, that would spoil all the fun; you know I will get home at four and Philip at seven. I shall have tea all ready and sit there demurely waiting for him, and he never will imagine that I have been off on a frolic until I tell him." And so she started, with many misgivings, however, on the part of the old people.

"She's such a bright little thing," father Thorne said to his wife when they were toasting their feet at the fire that night before going to bed.

"It's like seeing the crocuses and daffodils coming up, or getting a sniff at the hyacinth, to have her light down here like a pretty bird, to sing and chatter to us. Philip always did know just the right thing to do; he couldn't have found a better wife if he had searched the whole land through."

The train that carried Ruey thundered on its way, as though it disdained the thought that the snowflakes that filled the air could have aught to do with its progress. When the first tiny white feather came and softly laid itself down on the iron rails, did it secretly exult that it was one of a myriad that should rear a gigantic barrier before which this puffing fiery monster should stand powerless, and acknowledge the soft bits of down master of the situation? The storm raged through the day, increasing each hour in strength and fury. The long train began to plod in a laboured, tired way, after the manner of mortals, stopping often, while snow-ploughs in advance cleared the track. Darkness came down and still the fearful ma.s.s of whiteness piled itself in huge billows about them.

The snow-ploughs were unavailing; as fast as they cleared a s.p.a.ce the wind surged down and filled it up in a trice. The mighty engine struggled in vain to press forward, but only crept at snail's pace and finally came to a dead halt. There they were fast shut out from the world. They could do nothing but wait for morning. Most of the pa.s.sengers might not have resigned themselves to sleep so contentedly had they known that they were in the midst of the woods many miles from any town of much size, not near, even, to one of the straggling hamlets that dotted the country.

When the morning dawned they found themselves literally enclosed in snow--snow above, beneath, to right, to left, behind, before--a beleaguered host. Those who understood the situation looked appalled.

The world was well represented there in that restless company that stared from their windows into snow. How strange that one particular cla.s.s did not set out on this journey, but each cla.s.s had its type, as if some one had gone about, and gathering up handfuls of people stowed them on this train. They were all there, the woman with five children and the one with a lap-dog, and all acted out their individual natures more fully than they might have done under other circ.u.mstances; many lost that reticence that is supposed to belong to well-bred people on a journey, and told out their private affairs.

The man of business knit his brows and said that he "must reach C---- by a certain time or the consequences would be most disastrous." The fashionable lady wrapped herself in her furs and bestowed withering looks on the crying baby. The grumbler grumbled, and was sure somebody was to blame somewhere. The funny man bubbled and sparkled as usual, and sent rays akin to sunshine over lugubrious faces. The profane man opened his mouth and out came toads and scorpions, and the tobacco-chewers made dark pools on the floor to vex the souls of cleanly people. By the close of the day they were a very forlorn, hungry people.

There was one among them, though, who seemed to rise above it all; a plain-looking woman with an unfashionable bonnet, and a face like a benediction. She drew a little worn Bible from her satchel, and read it awhile by the dim light. Ruey wondered if she did not get something from that book that made her patient when others were not--that sent her to relieve the tired mother, by caring for the fretful baby a long time; and when another, a sad mother, unable longer to control her grief, moaned out, "My child will die before I can get to her," this woman was the one who went to her with words of comfort. Ruey's poor perturbed heart envied that calm face. She felt well-nigh distracted, not so much at the fact that she was cold and hungry, but what would Philip think when he returned and found her gone? No one knew where; not even a neighbour had the least intimation of her whereabouts. What a night of horrors he must have had! Oh, to be obliged to sit there and wait when she felt like flying! She heard the woman with the Bible whisper to the poor mother, "Pray; that will surely help you." "Perhaps it would help me," thought Ruey. She was not used to praying, but she needed help.

So she put her tired head down, and whispered a request for deliverance.

What did Philip do? He essayed to walk into his house. The door was locked, and there was no response to his repeated rings. He tried other doors with no better success; then he visited his neighbours.

They could give him no clue. He came back and stood in a dazed way on his own steps, looking up and down the street. He went down into the town and peered into the stores, but no Ruey. He called upon her most intimate friends--they didn't know she was absent. He racked his brain; was she out to tea? but she expected him home that very day.

As the evening advanced he began to be thoroughly alarmed. Perhaps she had met with some horrible fate in her own home. He forced the door and entered. The pretty rooms were in exquisite order. He searched wildly about for some sc.r.a.p of paper that might explain the mystery. Wherever she was, she had evidently been gone some time; the fires were dead and cold. He rushed down into the town again and consulted detectives, who suggested elopement as an explanation.