CHAPTER VIII

KITCHEN COMFORT

"I Do think the kitchen is the very nicest, most interesting room in the whole house," said Ruth.

She was standing in the center of the "cunning little kitchen" for which she had begged and which Mother had agreed it would be well to have. Father had hesitated on account of the cost, but Mother had said, "I've always wanted Ruth to have cooking lessons at school, but Miss Scott tells me they have no place to do it. Now my plan is to offer to let Miss Scott bring over the class once a week. It will be good for Ruth-I simply have not time to teach her myself and it will be nice to feel that we are not being selfish with the house, but are making it useful to the children's friends.”

"Oh, goody!" exclaimed Ruth. "I'm going to invite all the girls and we'll form a Junior Housekeepers' Club and—”

"Where do I come in?" protested Paul.

"You shall be in all the time, Paul," said Mother, patting his shoulder. "I don't intend that my son shall be perfectly helpless when there is no woman around to cook for him. Some of the most famous cooks in the world have been men-so you and the other boys shall have a cooking club, and we'll see whether the boys or the girls will win first prize for their cookery."

Mother and the children had spent a busy morning putting the kitchen to rights, washing out the new sink, brushing off the stove, putting away the dishes and pans and deciding where the table should stand.

"I really think," said Ruth, with a satisfied nod of her head, "that we planned it all very sensibly The china closet is right near the sink, so that I can put the clean dishes away as I wipe them. The closet for the flour and sugar and things, with this nice space down below for the pots and pans is handy to the stove, and

"I think," interrupted Paul, "that the table had better stand right here by the stove. Then, when we want to lift anything hot and heavy off the fire we can set it right on the table.”

"Good work, son," said Mother. "I'm glad to see that there is a brain under those curls of yours. We'll put the table by the stove, as you suggest. Now where shall we place the refrigerator?"

The refrigerator was Ruth's especial pride and joy-it seemed so like real housekeeping to have a genuine, grown-folks' refrigerator. To be sure, it was only lent by Aunt Louise for the summer, but Ruth rejoiced in it just the same and secretly hoped that when Aunt Louise came back from the mountains in the fall she would forget to ask for the refrigerator. The only trouble was that it was so big. Ruth's brow puckered. "If only the kitchen were a little bigger," she sighed.

"I have it!" cried Mother. "We'll set it right out here on the back porch. The ice won't melt so fast as it would indoors and it will be very convenient. One great thing in planning a kitchen is to arrange all the furniture so as to save steps. I'll never forget my grandmother's kitchen. It was huge and she must have walked miles back and forth from stove to table and table to closet every day."

"I'm going to wash the refrigerator out right now, "declared Ruth.

"Are you sure you know just how?" asked Mother.

"Yes, indeed; I've helped Aunt Louise do it."

So Ruth filled the new pail with hot water into which she carefully poured a little ammonia. She took the wire racks out of the refrigerator and scrubbed each one. Then she scrubbed out the whole inside of the refrigerator, letting the hot ammonia-water run off down the pipe into the drip-pan. "Now I'm going to get some ice from the other house," she said, triumphantly.

.

"Not yet, dear," said Mother. "When you have just scrubbed it with hot water, you must let it cool, or your ice will all melt. But I'm glad to see that you know how to keep a refrigerator sweet and clean. It ought to be cleaned this way every week, and if anything is spilled in the refrigerator, it ought to be washed up at once-not left to get sour and smelly. Besides, the pipe is likely to get clogged if you don't." "Mrs. Frost had an awful time with her refrigerator last week," said Paul. "Robert went to it to get some grape-juice for himself and me, and we forgot and left the door open. And what do you think that sly old Billiken did? He got in and ate up a whole platter of cold chicken and then he heard Mrs. Frost coming and jumped and upset the mayonnaise and a bottle of cream. Mrs. Frost never found out about it until next day when she went to get breakfast. She was awfully cross at Billiken and at Robert, too-she said it took her an hour to get it cleaned up, because the mayonnaise all got down the pipe. She had to pour down boiling water and ammonia to dissolve the grease."

While Paul had been talking, Mother had been

putting the broom and whisk-broom and dustpan, with the pail and cleaning cloth, into the corner closet

on the porch. "There," said she; "now you will always know just where to find your cleaning things and they won't be in the kitchen with your food and dishes. I think Uncle George had a bright thought when he planned this porch closet and this box for the garbage pail and rubbish tin." As she spoke, Mother threw a handful of paper into the rubbish tin. It stood, with the garbage pail, in a long box with a hinged cover, on the porch. Uncle George had made this box so that all dirt might be kept out of the kitchen and so that there should be no need of having the garbage and rubbish in sight.