No. IX.—THE MISERY CAUSED BY USING THE WRONG PUDDING-DISH.

BY EDITH WOODLEY

"I believe, Lizzy, that I never told you my own experience about goin' out to sarvice. I didn't go out 'cause 'twas necessary that I should, for at my father's there was a house full of everything. We al'ays lived like the sweet cheeses, as the sayin' is.

"You've heern me tell of Aunt Keziah Higgins. She wasn't my aunt, on'y a cousin to my mother; but I al'ays called her aunt, out of respect, seein' she was so much older than I was. Well, she was one of the most partic'lar bodies that ever breathed the breath of life, except Uncle Higgins, and he went a hair furder'n she did in some things. She al'ays chose to do her own work, for there wa'n't a pairson on airth that could suit her; but one fall she took a dreadful bad cold, and was threatened with the rebellious fever. Everybody knew how awful nice she was, to say nothin' of Mr. Higgins, and they couldn't git a soul to come and stay with 'em for a single day.

"At last, Uncle Higgins come arter me; and, when I found how 'twas, I consented to go, for it seemed to me a sin and a shame—what I called right down heathenish—to let the woman suffer for want of bein' took keer on. I didn't expect that I should suit in everything; but I felt detarmined, in my own mind, to put the best foot for'ard, and exart every narve to the utmost to do the best I could, and that was all that could be expected of anybody.

"They were both so tickled to think I consented to come, that they neither of 'em uttered a single word of complaint for the two first days. All I said or did was jest right. I was young, and didn't understand a dreadful deal about cookin'; but Aunt Keziah wasn't as sick but what she could give off the orders, so I got along nicely. The third day she said to me, arter breakfast—

"'Tabitha, I guess I'll have a rice puddin' made for dinner to-day. A rice puddin', if 'tis made jest right, is Mr. Higgins's favorite.'

"So she told me how to proportionate all the 'gred'encies—how many eggs, how much rice, sugar, milk, and everything. I mustn't vary the vally of a thimbleful in an individwal thing, she said, 'cause, if I did, it wouldn't suit Mr. Higgins. The sass to eat on't, too, must be made jest so.

"Well, I told her I'd do my best; and I did. If the rice, sugar, and so on had been goold dust, I couldn't 'ave been an atom more partic'lar about measurin' 'em; and, arter I got the puddin' into the oven, I watched it as narrer as ever a cat watched a mouse, so as to be sure 'twas bakin' jest fast enough, and none too fast.

"When 'twas drawin' along towards dinner-time, I thought I'd hunt up a dish to turn the puddin' into, 'cause, you see, I baked it in a brown, airthen dish that wa'n't fit to set on the table. Well, I come across a deep, blue-edged one, jest like one we had at home, that my mother bought on purpose to put puddin' into. We were to have, besides the puddin', a grand good b'iled dish—pork and corned beef, and all sorts of garding-sass, sich as cabbage, turnips, bates, carriots, and so on. 'Twas no fool of a job to prepare so many kinds of sass; but I didn't vally the trouble, all I aimed at was to suit Uncle Higgins. When I'd got everything on the table, they looked so nice I felt quite proud. Accordin' to my mind, 'twas a dinner fit to set afore a king.

"Uncle Higgins was blest with an amazin' good appetite, and, I tell you, he did good justice to the b'iled dish. Arter a while, he begun to slack off a leetle mite, and I could see him eyein' the puddin' purty sharp. At last, says he—

"'What 'ave you got there, Tabitha?'

"'A rice puddin', sir,' says I.

"'A rice puddin'?' says he.

"'Yes, sir,' says I.

"'Well, then, I guess you never sarved much of a 'prenticeship at making rice puddin's,' says he.

"'If you'll jest taste of it, sir, I guess you'll like it,' says I.

"'I sha'n't taste of sich a lookin' thing as that,' says he, and up he jumps from the table, appearantly jest as mad as a March hare.

"I felt purty much riled myself, and should 'ave been glad if the tarnal puddin' had been right in the middle of the Red Sea. Arter I'd taken so much pains, worried myself e'en jest to death about it, as 'twere, I thought 'twas too bad for him to speak about it in sich a short, scornful way.

"I didn't tell Aunt Keziah anything about it, 'cause, as she was sick, I was afeared 'twould worry her; but, afore I'd finished doin' the work up arter dinner, Uncle Higgins got cooled down a leetle atom, and went into aunt's room to see how she was. She mistrusted by his looks that everything wasn't raly right, so she says to him—

"'How did the dinner suit you?'

"'Well enough,' says he.

"'Did Tabitha make the rice puddin' to yer likin'?' says she.

"'I didn't eat any rice puddin',' says he. 'There was a mushy-lookin' thing on the table that she called a rice puddin'; but it didn't look like an eatable to me.'

"'What appeared to be the matter with it?' says Aunt Keziah.

"'Why, one thing that ailed it was, there wa'n't a drop of whey in it; 'twas dry as a contribution-box, and you know I never eat sich puddin's.'

"'I guess you put a leetle too much rice in your puddin' accordin' to the other gred'ences,' says Aunt Keziah, the first time I went into the room arter Uncle Higgins was gone.

"'I put in jest as much as you said I must,' says I.

"'Well,' says she, 'Mr. Higgins told me 'twas too dry—that there wa'n't any whey in it.'

"'If that's all,' says I, 'I'll try my luck ag'in to-morrow, and make jest the same, on'y scant the rice the least mite that ever was.'

"'So do,' says Aunt Keziah. 'I rather guess you were a leetle too heavy-handed when you measured the rice.'

"Well, I do declare that I didn't think of anything but that tarnal rice puddin' all the arternoon; and, the minute I fell asleep at night, rice puddin's were settin' round in every direction, jest as thick as a swarm of bees. Once I thought I went to draw a pail of water, when up came a bucket full of rice puddin'. Then, ag'in, I thought I was starchin' some of Aunt Keziah's best caps, and found I'd been dippin' 'em in a mess of rice puddin', instead of starch. That was the way I was tormented all night long. My sleep didn't do me an atom of good; but, arter breakfast, I brightened up a little, and felt detarmined in my own mind, if there was any sich thing as makin' a rice puddin' that would suit Uncle Higgins, I would do it. So I went to work, and, the land o' massy! if I should live to be as old as Methuselah, and forty years on to the eend of that, I shall never forgit how I fussed and worried over that 'ere puddin'. If I measured the rice once, I raly b'l'eve that I measured it half a dozen times, so that, at last, I got to be so addle-pated that I could 'ave hardly told B from a broomstick.

"Aunt Keziah said there sartainly couldn't be any danger of its bein' too dry; and, if it erred a leetle bit on t'other hand, I could dip out two or three spoonfuls of the whey.

"I don't know how the President feels to be at the head of government; but, if the affairs of the nation weigh as heavy on his shoulders as that puddin' did on mine all the time 'twas bakin', he'd soon give up beat.

"There was never anything that looked a mite nicer than it did when I took it out of the oven. 'Twas enough to make a pairson's mouth water to look at it; but, the moment I put the tarnal thing into the deep, blue-edged dish, it looked 'xact as t'other did, on'y, if anything, a leetle more mushy, as Uncle Higgins called it. If there'd been time, I'd 'ave gone off by myself and had a good cryin' spell. It was my fairm belief that the puddin' was bewitched. What to do I didn't know. One minute I thought I'd put it on the table, and Uncle Higgins might eat some of it or not, jest as he was a mind to. The next minute, I made up my mind to hide it away, and not let him know that I'd made one. I was right in the midst of my quandary, when, the first thing I knew, Uncle Higgins walked into the kitchen, and marched right up to the table, where sot the puddin'.

"'What do you call that?' says he.

"'A rice puddin',' says I; and, judgin' by my feelin's, I turned all manner of colors.

"'Well, don't put sich a lookin' thing as that on to the table,' says he. 'It don't look fit to be sot afore anybody but a heathen. I've no notion of havin' what leetle appetite I've got sp'ilt by havin' that dispisable-lookin' thing afore my eyes.'

"So I goes and pokes it away in a sly corner, for it had tried my feelin's so I parfectly hated the sight on't. I wa'n't much afeared that Uncle Higgins would starve, if he didn't have the puddin' to top off with. He was a dreadful great eater—eat as much as two Christian men ought to; but I guess he didn't take a terrible sight of comfort eatin' his dinner, for he had on an awful long face the whole time. I s'pose that tarnal old puddin' was runnin' in his head. If 'twa'n't in his, it was in mine.

"Well, Aunt Keziah was mighty airnest to know what luck I had with it. I meant to ave told her afore dinner, and should, if Uncle Higgins hadn't come in so, all of a sudding, while I was tryin' to settle in my mind what I should do about puttin' it on to the table for dinner. When she asked me about it, I had tough work to keep from bu'stin' right out a cryin'; for I felt sorry, and I felt 'shamed, and, to tell the plain truth, a leetle mite put out.

"'Well, it does seem curious,' says she, arter I'd finished tellin' her about it. 'Run, Tabitha, and bring the puddin' here, and let me have a squint at it. If I ever made one puddin' by that resait, I'm free to say I've made a hundred, and al'ays had first rate luck. The very witches have got into the puddin', I b'l'eve.'

"So off I goes and gits the puddin', and carries it in for Aunt Keziah to look at.

"'La, child,' says she, the minute she clapped her eye on it, 'I've found out the marvellous mystery. You've put it into the wrong pudding'-dish.'

"'What odds can it make,' says I, 'whether it's in this or any other?'

"'Why, don't you see, child, that the dish, by bein' so deep and so small over, don't give the whey a chance to settle off round the edges, but makes it all mix in with the rice? I al'ays puts it into that shaller, Chany dish, with a gilt edge, that you'll find on the lower shelf of the cupboard. Now, if you'll jest shift the puddin' into that 'ere dish, you'll see 'twill look as different as light and darkness.'

"Well, off I went and put it into the dish she told me about, when, lo and behold! the whey settled off jest as calm and purty as a summer's mornin', and made a streak round the outside of the puddin' clear and bright as crystchal. I could hardly b'l'eve my own eyes, and I s'pose I was as tickled and proud a critter as ever walked on the face of the airth. I carried it right along to let Aunt Keziah see it.

"'There,' says she, 'that looks right; that'll suit Mr. Higgins. Say not a word about it, Tabitha; but jest set it into the kittle to-morrow and heat it over with the steam, and 'twill do for dinner; for, if you should try forty thousand times, you wouldn't hit it righter than you have this time.'

"'Well,' says I, 'if you or any other pairson had told me that I should undergone so much misery on account of usin' the wrong puddin'-dish, I wouldn't 'ave b'l'eved 'em.'

"The next day, I steamed the puddin', put it into the Chany dish, and sot it on the table for dinner.

"'There, now, that looks somethin' like,' says Uncle Higgins. 'I'll tell you what, Tabitha, it isn't best for young, inexperienced gals, like you, to be too wilful—too fond of havin' their own way. You thought you'd tire me out, and git me to eat one of your mushy puddin's at last; but I must be nigh on to famishin' afore I could eat sich a puddin' as you made yesterday.'

"'I'm glad it suits you, sir,' says I, lookin' meek and innocent as old Aunt Peggy's cosset lamb, when it turns its basin of milk over.

"You've no idee how I wanted to tell him 'twas the identical puddin' he run down so to the very lowest notch the day afore; but, you see, I daresn't, so all the pay I could git was the privilege of laughin' in my sleeve as he sot there eatin' the puddin', and praisin' it every other mouthful."