She Shall Be Praised

by Ginny Aiken

  “Yes, well,” she said. “We can do without having to resort to such a distasteful action just for a meal, right? I’m sure we’ll find some other nice thing to eat in the shed.”

  When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized the lean-to was even more rustic than the cabin, perhaps closer to flimsy and rickety. The small structure had a packed, swept dirt floor, and multiple shelves lined three of the walls, like the section of the cabin closest to the fireplace. All the shelves sagged with jars and cans of food. Stacked at the very back, Emma saw large sacks labeled “coffee,” “flour,” “sugar,” and “beans.” Some unidentified wooden barrels and a pair of tall crocks stood in the farthest corner. A number of stout tins nearby had white labels that identified their contents as lard.

  More of those neat paper labels with not-as-neat writing told which of the many glass jars contained what preserved meats, while the many tins of vegetables bore bright-colored wrappers. In seconds, Emma found a supply of jarred chicken meat.

  “Look, Robby! Here’s your chicken. We’re partway to a supper.”

  “C’mere, then,” the boy said, grinning. “Let’s get beans from the sack. Colley keeps a jar of ’lasses in the kitchen. One of flour, too. For the biscuits, you know.”

  Ah… he meant mealy haricot-type beans, rather than the green broad bean variety, of which she could see many tins. On the basis of what she recalled from skimming through the Mrs. Beeton, Emma was willing to cook the beans—for fifteen or so minutes, as she remembered. She handed Pippa’s rope to Robby with strict instructions to hang on tight to the dog, hurried back to the cabin, picked up a bowl for the beans, and returned to scoop out a good amount for supper.

  Inside again, Pippa was happy to jump up onto the bunk and curl up on the pillow as soon as Emma freed her from the rope. Comfortable in her soft perch, the pup watched every bit of activity, her dark eyes fixed on Robby. Robby, however, paid poor Pippa no attention. He wouldn’t leave Emma’s side. Not that she really wanted him there; she didn’t want him to witness any disaster she might stir up. True, she didn’t plan to create a disaster, but trouble could always happen. And often did.

  Emma spread everything out on the table.

  “Remember the flour for the biscuits,” Robby said.

  She did indeed, but she had already begun to feel overwhelmed. “One thing at a time, please, don’t you think? Perhaps I should put the chicken to cook first. And then we could place the beans over the fire.”

  He nodded and smiled. “Fine. And then I can help you stir things with my wooden spoon, right? I have a special one, and Colley lets me do that when she’s making supper.”

  As far as Emma could see, that wouldn’t be too much trouble. “I’m glad you want to help. But we do have to beware of that fire, you understand. How about if you fetch me a good pan for this chicken first? I brought in two large jars, since we have four hungry men, Colley, and the two of us to feed.”

  She had no idea how much a man might eat, but the individual jars, while stuffed full, didn’t seem to have too much for six adults and Robby. At least, it didn’t seem too much to her inexperienced eye. Since she couldn’t guess on quantities, Emma decided to make a large batch of beans and a good stack of biscuits to make sure the meal would satisfy all those appetites. She hoped it all turned out simply delightful. Edible would do fine, as well.

  Her stomach growled.

  Robby giggled. “You’re hungry, too, Lady Emma!”

  “Oh, yes. And from what you said, I gather you’re ready to eat, aren’t you?”

  The boy handed her a navy-blue enameled kettlelike pan with white speckles, deep and with a thick-wire handle attached from side to side. Then he rubbed his belly. “Mm-hm.”

  Emma caught her breath and studied the two jars of preserved meat. Tin lids covered the wide mouths, secured to the glass containers with screw-on zinc caps. She twisted off the first one… and confronted the tight seal of the flat metal part. It clung to the glass with a stubborn strength she hadn’t expected. She couldn’t pull it off, even after the pads of her fingers had turned red from her efforts.

  “I need to check something in your mama’s book,” she told Robby, as she hurried to the table where Mrs. Beeton lay waiting—she hoped—to provide guidance, pan and jars clutched tight. How was she supposed to open the container without breaking it and spilling everything if the lid didn’t yield? Was there a special trick to it?

  But when she rifled through the book, nothing jumped out at her to offer the information she wanted. She suspected those other women she’d thought about earlier, the ones who hadn’t been blessed with the kind of life Papa had provided for her, would know how to conquer the obstinate jar. She’d never felt so ignorant in her life.

  “Lady Emma?” Robby asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Um… I’m looking for something—”

  “But what about the chicken? I’m hungry.”

  Straight from “the lips of babes and sucklings…” She needed to open the jars.

  Closing Mrs. Beeton, she confronted her task again. This time, she tried to pry off the lids with her fingernails, only for one to surrender before the lid. She turned the container around and around, holding it up for a better look.

  As she studied the container, it made a long, slow sucking sound and sticky liquid oozed out from between the tin and the glass, right onto her hands. “Oh-oh-oh! I—it just—oh, dear!”

  The contents continued the thick seepage as Robby giggled again. Emma held the jar over the enamel pan. A second later, the resistant lid gave way. All the contents plopped down. Through her fingers.

  The boy laughed out loud. His chortles and peals of laughter were so cheery that they were almost worth Emma’s embarrassment and discomfort. Almost.

  She still had a lid to fish out of the gelatinous globs in the pan. And she needed to wash her hands. The pinkish-beige stuff didn’t look like any chicken she’d ever eaten. She hoped its appearance improved with cooking.

  “Lady Emma! That was so funny! Your face… the chicken surprised you, didn’t it?”

  And how. “It did, Sir Robby, I must confess.”

  “You going to do it again?”

  Heaven forbid. “I hope not. Let’s see how this other jar goes.”

  She hastily rinsed her hands in the water Colley had poured into a pitcher for her earlier in the morning, when Emma had wanted to wash up a bit. With a touch more skill this second time around, she used a knife to fight off the tight, sealed lid. Nothing, however, could have stopped a repeat of the sucking sound followed by the plop into the pan.

  It sent Robby into another fit of mirth.

  Spoon in hand, she tried to stir the mess, but gave up her efforts when she realized nothing much would help break up the blobs and lumps. Except perhaps the actual cooking.

  She hoped.

  Cooking. Hm… she glanced at the hearth. An iron rod ran across the very front of the opening, with S-shaped iron hooks hanging from the rod. She supposed that was how Colley hung kettles over the coals, but didn’t know if they would do anything for the chicken, since the coals were covered with a white powdery haze and didn’t feel particularly fiery. On the other hand, the hearth did still put out heat, even this much later. Colley had lit it in the morning, cooked breakfast on the strange, three-legged, flat pan-topped iron… thing, and left the coals to continue to warm the cabin. Emma had appreciated the extra warmth, since spring mornings seemed to come in chilly, and days still ended in cold nights up on these mountains.

  With hope in her heart, she hooked the handle of her kettlelike pan on one of the S hooks.

  She gave her hands a sweeping clap, a sense of accomplishment within her. “There! Now on to the beans.”

  “I put them right here, Lady Emma.” The boy pointed at the bowl on the table. “And the ’lasses are up there”—he indicated the second shelf—“plus the flour for the biscuits, too.”

  She gathered the two containers and brought them to t
he table. Thank goodness for Robby. She’d be lost without him. “What about a pan for the beans? What does Colley use?”

  The boy’s brows drew close as he concentrated. “Not sure, milady. Sometimes I seen her—”

  “I’ve seen her,” she corrected.

  “Good,” Robby answered. “Then you know.”

  Emma chuckled. “No, no. That’s not what I meant. Your papa has said I should help you speak properly, and I was just correcting you. The right way to say that is to say ‘Sometimes I’ve seen her,’ not ‘Sometimes I seen her.’ ”

  “Really? Sounds the same to me.”

  “There’s a difference. I’ve seen her means that you have seen her. ‘I’ve’ is short for ‘I have.’ ”

  He shrugged. “All right, then. I have seen her use two different pans to make beans. Sometimes she uses a big, deep pan with a heavy lid, but sometimes she uses the spider.”

  Robby pointed at the flat pan on three legs where Colley had cooked breakfast. So it was called a spider. Emma supposed the three legs looked a bit like the bug itself, although the contraption did lack five additional legs. Regardless, she would use it, since it already stood in a corner of the hearth, close enough to the coals that it should prove simple enough to scoot it over the ones mounded higher toward the center. She imagined more coals meant more heat, and the beans should cook quicker with more heat. That way, she could have the meal ready to serve the men as soon as they walked in the door.

  Emma picked up her bowl of beans and walked to the spider. She tipped the crock to pour them out, and the clanking of the hard beans against the iron rang out in the room. When she figured she had enough in the pan, since the bowl had been fairly full, she returned to the table again. Time for the ’lasses, as Robby called the sweetener.

  After she added a large quantity of the thick, strong-scented dark syrup to the beans, she put that jar away, and returned to the hearth, a long-handled scoop in hand. A deep, black kettle full of hot water gave off wisps of steam where it hung at one end of the iron rod across the fireplace. Filling her scoop a couple of times, Emma transferred sufficient water to the spider to make sure the molasses dissolved and the liquid covered the beans.

  After another good stir, she returned to Mrs. Beeton to see if she could solve the mystery of turning flour into something as tender and flaky as a biscuit.

  “Whatcha doing?” Robby asked, perched on a stool across the table from where she sat.

  “Trying to learn about biscuits.”

  “Biscuits? In Mama’s book?”

  “It’s a book about cookery.”

  “Oh.” He scratched his head. “Colley don’t—”

  “Doesn’t.”

  He smiled. “Doesn’t. Colley doesn’t use a book to make biscuits. She uses flour and water and salt and that thick, white stuff in the tin pail and… and…” He frowned. “Can’t ’member what else she might could use.”

  It was good enough for Emma. So far, the boy hadn’t steered her wrong. “Well, then, shall we gather our ingredients here on the table, Sir Robby?”

  She grabbed the largest bowl off the shelf, piled in the salt crock, snagged the pail of lard from where it sat close to the door, and returned to the table. “We can start by mixing these.”

  The flour whooshed up into a puffy cloud when she dumped it into the thick, yellow earthenware bowl. She coughed as it tickled her throat. “Oh, my goodness!”

  Robby laughed again. “Lady Emma! You’re so funny.”

  “I must admit, I’ve never aspired to be funny, Sir Robby, but if it’s to your pleasure, then I’m happy to oblige.”

  “And you talk some funny, too.”

  “We’ll fix that opinion as we go along,” she said. “You’ll see.”

  He plunked his elbows on the table, quite content to watch her efforts.

  Salt. Hm… biscuits needed salt. How much? As she went to check Mrs. Beeton, her stomach growled again. Robby covered his mouth with both hands to keep from laughing out loud. But his eyes twinkled above his fingers.

  “Yes, Sir Robby, I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

  He nodded, hands fixed in place.

  Emma figured it might be a good idea to check her pocket watch. It was close to five in the afternoon, and she suspected the men wouldn’t be gone too much longer. Her research in Mrs. Beeton’s book would have to wait.

  She dipped a hand in the gray crock full of salt and poured a quantity of the seasoning into the palm of her hand. Most folks liked salt. Filling the well in the center of her hand gave her a good mound. She dumped it into the flour.

  For the lard, she used a large wooden spoon to measure out a big lump of the white stuff, which plopped into the middle of the dry flour, creating another poof. Then, armed with her trusty water scoop, she retrieved some from the hot kettle at the hearth, poured it into her bowl, and began to stir.

  The resulting substance was thick and hard to mix. At first, it felt crumbly and stiff. Emma added water. Then it seemed thin. She poured more flour into the bowl. Bit by bit, she came up with something that looked possible to her. The whole time, Robby kept up his chatter.

  Emma listened with less than half her attention. Her mind was on her next step. What would she use to form the biscuits? How did one bake them? She’d seen Ophelia bake before, but that was on the family’s huge black Excelsior iron stove with its oven door on the front. Here, on a hearth, she saw no logical substitute for the oven.

  Not that she would have known what to do once she put pats of the blended fat, water, and flour into an oven, had she had one available. And she really hadn’t had anywhere near enough time to search Mrs. Beeton for instructions.

  When her hands were sticky with chunks of dough, when the table was snowed under a flurry of flour, when the front of her ruined skirt and the wilted lace of her blouse were not only floured, but also smeared with smudges of the lard, Colley marched in. The door banged shut. “Afternoon, Miss Emma—”

  Her footsteps came to a complete halt.

  Robby’s chatter died.

  Emma’s middle knotted, and her hands shook. She didn’t speak.

  Colley did. “What in the name of goat’s gizzards happened here?”

  Emma, certain the best way to handle this kind of situation was to present a strong, confident stance, stiffened her back, squared her shoulders, tipped up her chin, and gave Colley a brilliant smile. “I’ve been making supper.”

  “She made chicken and beans, and now she’s making biscuits.”

  “Looks to this body like she’s made a mess more’n anything else.” Colley marched to the table, her booted steps clomping loudly in the small room and, after dragging off her hat, peered into the bowl. “What in thunder is this, Miss Emma?”

  Proud of her hard work, Emma smiled again. “As Robby just informed you, it’s the biscuits.”

  Colley’s pewter-toned brows rose to almost her hairline. She studied the unevenly mixed ingredients, and then glanced at Robby, who nodded with great enthusiasm. “You don’t say.”

  Robby nodded even more. “An’ I helped Lady Emma, Colley. We made supper together.”

  The ranch manager rubbed the back of her neck. “Well, Miss Emma, I’m feeling a mite starved, I must confess,” she said. “Let me give you a hand with them biscuits and dishin’ up. The boss is bringing in them two rustlers. Him and Wade had to untie their feet so’s they could walk on over from the bunkhouse, and they’ll all be right hungry.”

  It struck Emma as unusual to have the outlaws tied by the foot, but she wasn’t about to argue. She still had the biscuits to bake. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Colley, what do I do to bake those biscuits? I see you don’t have a proper cook stove anywhere.”

  The ranch manager chuckled. “See that there tin contraption over next to the fireplace? That’s a tin kitchen. It’s an old-fangled thing a body uses to bake when she don’t have herself a cook stove. Makes right fine biscuits, too, missy. You’ll see. Let me have that dough you made up there.”
>
  Relieved, Emma surrendered the bowl. She couldn’t wait to wash up and get the sticky bits off her fingers. She went to the pitcher and poured water into the wash basin. She rubbed her fingers over and over again, and with a bit of determination, plus a cake of plain, cream-colored soap, the dough finally melted off.

  “Wha… Miss Emma!” Colley cried. “What is this?”

  She spun around, a length of cotton toweling in her hands. Just then, the door opened again and Wade strode in, followed by the two outlaws and Mr. Lowery. Her gaze flew back and forth between the newcomers and Colley, who stood at the hearth, staring at the beans in the spider. She scooped up a spoonful then let the beans drop back down to the pan, the round pebbles slithering off the wooden bowl of the spoon and plopping into the liquid with glugging sounds.

  It didn’t look anything like any beans she’d ever eaten.

  “Miss Crowell?” Mr. Lowery asked, frowning. “Do you not have our supper ready yet?”

  She met the rancher’s gaze. “The chicken should be done. And the beans… well, they must be about to be ready anytime soon. They’ve been cooking for a while now, and the cookery book I used said beans generally take between ten and fifteen minutes to cook.”

  “What?” Mr. Lowery said.

  This time, Colley’s eyebrows disappeared under the hair that had loosened around her forehead. “It couldn’t have!”

  Sawyer guffawed.

  Ned looked puzzled.

  Emma’s middle quaked. Something had gone dreadfully wrong. And she knew it began with the beans that looked anything but right.

  Colley set the spoon down on a nearby shelf. She approached Emma, concern on her mature features. “You weren’t playin’ pretend when you told the boss here you didn’t know how to cook, now, were you?”

  “Why would you think I’d do something so silly as pretend?” she asked.

  Colley tipped her head, as though mystified by her own foolishness. “I figured all women knew how to go ’bout fixin’ something simple to eat. I reckon I was wrong.”

  “What about our supper?” Mr. Lowery asked in a tight voice.