LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1580, 13 March 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AS MY MOTHER USED TO. " Weekly Alta," California.) ' What ia the matter, Arthur?' asked young Mrs Emerson, as her husband pushed his chair back from the tea table with a half, suppressed sigh and an exceedingly dissatisfied face, ' Oh, nothing,' replied the young lawyer, with the aspect of a martyr. ' Isn't your tea strong enough ?' ' Yes, my dear.' ' But, Arthur, you ought to tell me. If anything does not suit you, I will change it. Only let me know what it is ' 'lt is ooly a trifle, my dear Fanny. I was merely thinking of mother's biscuits, and how good they used to tnste. People don't cook in that way now, you know.' At this re-appearance of a very old and very familiar bugbear, Mrs Emerson closed her lips very firmly together. 'l've often wished, my dear, that you could take a few lewsons from mother before we began to keep house,' her husband continued.

' In cooking, Arthur ?' 'Well, yes. That for one thing. She has had great experience, you know. She never had bad luck with a single thing that I remember. And her cooking did taste so good ! It would be worth a journey to Connecticut merely to eat such a meal as I used to eat three times a day when I was a boy at home.' His mildly plaintive tone, and the suggestive way in which his eyes dwelt upon a plate of drop cakes which had been a little too much browmd in the oven that afternoon, wore like the last straw on the camel's back to his usually patent wife. Her pretty face was deeply flushed as Bhe waid that she saw no reason why he should deny himself so great a pleasure, ' We can take our Summer trip in that direction if you choose, Arthur.' 'Will you go, too?' he asked, looking delighted. 1 1 will. And I will ask your mother to show me how to make all the old-fashioned dishes you are so fond of,' ' Hurrah! I'll write to the old lady tomorrow VPhen can you bo ready to start, love ?' ' fn three days from this.' ' Three days let it be, then. My mother will be so pleased, dear. And I shall so like to take you round to all the old places where I used to dream of my fature life, little thinking then, Jenny, who was to share it with me.'

For the next three days Arthur could think and talk of nothing but the old home. Jennie listened to him dutifully, and now and then her conscience reproached her for the plan which in her secret heart Bhe had laid for hie enlightenment. She knew, however, he deserved a seveie lesson' And she was quite confident that in his dearly beloved home he would receive it. They closed their pretty house, on one of the shadiest streets in Pliladelphia, some weeks before any of their neighbors had even thought of the country. And when June roses and June strawberries were first filling the air with their delicious fragrance, the travel ers alighted one warm, blue, suuny afternoon at the small roadside station be'<>nglng to the village in which the young lawyer had been born and bred 'There's Abner,' a aid Arthur, making f 1 antic signals to a young giant in blue cot ton overalls and shirt-sleeves, whet was presiding over an empty ox cart at tho other side of the station. ' ("hi* is my wife, Abner,' he continued, when the young man lounged towards them. ' Who hats come to meet us?' 'Well, no one but me,' said Abner, chewing meditatively on a straw, as he eyed Jenny from head to foot. ' Folks are all busy up to the farm, but yonr mother, and there'd be some trunks to come, certain. ■•o I came down with the oxer. Is this young meeting-house yours, ma'am f he asked, turning suddenly upon Jenny, who looked at him and then at Arther in dismay.

'The trnnk,' he exp with a loud hugh, tfbich was taken up and e"h -ed by several rough loungers, who were standing O" the platform of the station. JVnny was glad to walk with her hnahnnd across the fields, and thus escape farther ob-ervation and remark. The field was the longest aud mnch the pleasantcst with the country sights, and sound*. »nd smells, after the close confin- me- t of the city. th<w did not hurry till a church [clock, somewhere m the distance before them, struck six. Then Arthur looked at bis watoh with rather a guilty ai*. 'By George, it is six, sure enough 1 We must step out, my dear. My mother will be sure to have some of the nice things for tea t h at I used to like, and she will not be pl-ased if we keep th« table waiting.' Jenny thought involute tartly, of bis fre quent unpu-ctuality at her table. But. she was a wisn little woman. She s r *id nothing, Abner had reached the farm in good time to make his report, or the delay of her supper hou ■••, had slightly soured the temper of the widowed mistreßS of the farm. She met her Ron with an nffectionate kiss, for he was her only child, and the very apple of her eye But Jenny received only a little frosty ' peck' from the thin lips upon her blooming cheek, and she knew, by the way in which the old lady's keen, cold blue eyes wandered over the frills and puffs of her neat travelling-dress, that she was mentally accusing her of extravagant wastefulness with regard to Arthur's 'means.' Mrs Emereon, senior, was attired in a cheap calico dress, spotted with brown leaves and dots on a purple ground. It was very straight and scanty in the skirts, and displayed more of a bony foot and ancle, clothed in a calfskin shoe and gay cotton stocking than seemed strictly needful or ornamental Ho' long straight neck was guiltless of a c dlar or ribbon, and her thin grey hair was braided in a little ' png' at the bick of her bead and confined there by a peculiarly strong-minded-looking comb, with a very high back. fn face and feature she resembled her son, who was generally considered a very handsome man. Properly dressed and more pleasantly mannered, the old lady might also have been called handsome. But the hard, grudging domineering temper which she was just now displaying would have altered for the worse the lovely fac9 of the Goddess Venus herself.

• Tea haa been waiting this half hour ; so don't stay up stairs long to prink,' was her sulky warning, as .fenny asked to be shown to her own room for a slight toilet before sitting down to the table. When Jenny came down stairs, she found that Arthur had washed his face and hands at the bench by the back door, and was using a square of yellow soap and a brown crash towel—he, who at home in Philadelphia, could scarcely find toilet niceties enough to suit him. 'lt is so like the good old times,' he said, his cheeks rosy from the cold spring water and the nutmeg grater of a cloth. • And here is the dear old table set before the kitchen window, with the blue dishes just as it used to be, and some of mother's oldfashioned biscuits. N'ow Jenny, you will have such a treat! You must ask mother to show yiu how to make them before we go. What's this ? A strawberry shortcake, and the b°rries only just in ! Well done, mother I There isn't such another cook in all America, as I've often told my wife.' Mrs Kmerson listened to his praises most nomplacently, and even pressed the lauded dainties upon her unloved daughter in-law. Jenny gladly did and said all she could to distract her mother-in-law's attention from Arthur, who had suddenly ceased talking, and yet was not eating very heartily. The wicked little pus>B was dying with laughter inwardly all the while at the sight of Arthur's dismayed and disgusted face. When she saw him hastily cram a biscuit and a thick square of shortcake into his pocket, while his mother was busy with the tea kettle at the stove, she nearly strangled herself with a pretended cough. Mrs Emerson vainly urged her son to parG&ke of the biscuit and shortcake a second time.

1 I made them with my own hands, after the recipe you were so fond of when yon were a boy,' she kept saying. And at last Arthur, with a wistfully imploring glance at his wife, as if begging her not to contradict him, declared that the dainties had the old delicious taste, but that he, being a little out of health and under the strict orders of his physician as to diet, dared not extend the quantity alreidy taken.

'lf I follow his directions faithfully, I shall soon be pretty well, and you will see how I shall walk into your good things, mother, when we call here again on our way home.' There was an ominous pause. Jenny heard the clock tick and her own heart beat, and dared not look up from her plate. l On your way back from where ?' the old lady asked at last. 'You are here now, and I suppose you are going to stay, ain't you ?' 'Only till to-morrow,' said Arthur desperately. 'We have stopped here before going to the sea shore.' ' The sea sho e ! Your father and I got along well enough without going to the sea shore, Arthur. But that accounts for that monstrous trunk,' Bnarled Mrs Emerson, fixing a baleful glance on Jenny, who could not resent it, in her joy at her promised deliverance. * Abner said his back was about broken with lifting it. I think it's a shame myself, to lug such things around the country, just to rile everybody up that has to take charge of them. But I'm an old woman, and I don't follow the fashions, so I Buppose my opinion ain't worth listening to by those that do follow them, and can afford.' The old lady had now got a firm hold of such a first-class grievance that Arthur gave his wife a look which she understood.

Presently she left the room with a slieht apology, and wandered about in the large garden alone till the moon was high above her head.

Turning toward th» house she saw her husband and his mother sitting in earnest conversation at the parlor window. Every one olee was in bed. Unwilling to disturb them she passed by and went to own room. There, after a brief inter va l , she fell into a very sound and placid slumber, from whioh she did not wake when, at midnight, the mother and son came up the stairs together. The breakfast was an improvement in some respects upon the supper table, so that poor Arthur could at last satisfy his hunger, which was becoming keen. But Btill "the crying sin" remained, evidently unthought of hy any one except the guests, who were prevented by common courtesy from alluding to it, although strongly inci.ed to do so by commoa sense. And throughout the greater part of the remainder of their journey, the same drawback to their enjoyment met them in every place, Heartily g!ad was Jenny when their wanderings were over, and she could once more spread her plain, but healthful and tempting table, in her own home, aud see her husband enjoy its contents with the eager appetite of a boy. Still more happy was she when he gave her liberal praise tor the pains she had taken to please him. So deeply happy, in fact, that she burst into tears. He was by her side in a momeut, wiping them away. ' I know. Jenny, dear,' he said kindly. ' I know all abont it. And 1 might have been worrying and hamssing you about my dear mother's cooking to the end of our lives, if we had not gone to the old homestead together this Summer. You must fo r get and forgive it all, my dear, Indeed you cook ten thousand times better I Only as Bhe is vu old lady, we won't tell poor mother so.' Jenny's pilent answer was a kiss. '-. «niy to think how good th ee things tasted in the old days ' he went on, musingly. 'I wonder if there was so much saler tus in them then V Jenny nodded. ' I asked your mother for the same recipe, Arthur, and I wrote it down from her directions.

' Pray don't ever use it for my benefit,' said Arthur, shuddering. ' What! was the charm in the old time, I'd like to know ? ' A very simple one, dear. You were then a healthy, happy schoolboy running and leaping all the day 'ong, till you were simply ravenous. )f you could take the same axeroiso wi'h thu same kind of food, surely it would have same dulicious taste. Sharp hunger is excellent pauce, Arthur.' ' You're right, Jenny. That must be the true reason. But nine* I cannot leapand run through the city streets in search of that vanished ogre's appetite and digestion, suppose we burn the old-fashioned saleratus recipe, eh ?' ' I'll keep it,' said Jenny, laughing, ' till I am quite assured of your thorough reform. If you ever have a relapse, and I find it imp ssible to suit you, then tremble, for I shall most certainly give you the benefit of the knowledge I have acquired in this way.' Rut she has never yet had to resort to what she calls • the re nedy.' Ncr do I thing that she ever will. One lesson <n that subject has been enough for Arthur Emerson's good.