MCSWAT'S JOHNNY CAKES.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 122, 1 November 1902, Page 17

M C SWAT'S JOHNNY CAKES.

*7p> THE McSwat household was thrown into temporary contusion, by the sudden adjournment, sine die, of the kitchen lady, a young woman of great force of character who had learned of a place where the hours of work were shorter, and the afternoons out longer, and more frequent, and had gone to fill it. "Now, Lobelia," said Mr. McSwat, as they were preparing to retire for the night, 'if your headache is not any better in the morning, don't you hurry about getting up. I can manage the breakfast." •You'" exclaimed Mrs Mcbwat with the contempt that every experienced housewife feels for the meddlesome masculine being who seeivs to thrust himself into the affairs of the domestic cookshop. "You! Why, Billinger, ■• O'U don't know any more about cooking a breakfast than an odd hen V "I'll show you." he retorted. "We have Johnny cakes for breakfast every morning; don't we 9 Well, you tell me how to manage them, and if I don't turn out as good an article of food as you ever took into your system. I'll eat the article. What is the first thing yu do?" "Well, if you are bound to try your hand at it— but you've got to promise me one thin" Will you do exactly what I tell yon ?" "Of course I will. What do you take me for?" "Then, the first thing you do after you have got your fire all ready is to prepare the batter. It is in the stone jar on the kitchen table. There is always some left over from breakfast and it 'n&es ; the batter for the next morning. Understand that?" "Anybody can understand that. Go on." "Well, I've fixed it for to-morrow morning. All you will have to do will be to turn it out in a little soda, salt, and spice, and some Auckland treacle. "What is the treacle for?" "To make the cakes brown nicely, stupid." "Don't call names, madam. What else?" "Have your griddle on the fire. You will find the greaser in the little sauce-boat by the ginger jar. Don t use too much -rease — " "How do I thin the batter?' "I hadn't forgotten that. You take a cup of warm water— not hot, remember —stir in a small teaspoonful of soda, about the same auantity of salt, pour it in the batter, stir it slowly a minute or two add the treacle— that is in a fruit iar in the nantry — and then bake a trial cake. If it lacks anything you can tell what it is from the way it tastes. Gain you remember all that?" "Remember all that!" said McSwat, with crushing, disdain. "Do you call that anything to remember?" "There's one thing more. You will need the cake-turner. It is in the drawer of the kitchen table. Now, do you think you can manage it?" His only reply was a soft snore. About 6.30 o'clock the next morning Mr. Billinger McSwat might have been seen m his great act of getting the breakfast. He lighted the gas range, hunted utj the griddle, put it over the fire, and approached the jar of batter. Rolling up his sleeves he contemplated it in silence a moment, and then legan business. The first thing he did, after hunting tip the necessary groceries in the pantry and greasing the griddle, was to fill a teacup with water from the boiler, which providentially, was still warm, and stir in a heaping tablespoonful of soda. , , "I think that is the quantity she prescribed," he siaid, cheerfully. it is not enough I can put in more. Then, he added a tablespoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of treacle, and poured the mixture into the batter iar. He stirred the batter fiercely. It foamed up at once, and ran over the top of the par. "She mixed up too much of the blessed stuff," he mutteTed, stirring it more vigorously Bv this time the kitchen was filling with smoke. Concluding that the griddle was hot enouerh, he hastily lifted the jar carried i* t" thp stove ar»d poured a auantitv of the batter out on the smoking griddle, throueh he spout on the side of the jar. There was a tremendous sizzle. "You bet it's hot enough'" he exclaimed. "Now where's the blooming cakp-tumer p " He could not find it. "Npver mind " he said "I've seen mother use a carvine knife." When he had secured the knife it appeared to be high time to turn t.ie cake On the uoper side it looked dry and yellowish. But, the cake stuck. He sawed the knife under it with des>perate haste however, and finally, rot ji o v ocr—in er— in sections — a blackened frizzled discouraged semblance of a Johnny cake.

"I don't believe it needs any cooking on that side," he said, scraping it off the griddle and slapping it on a plade "This," he continued, with a ferocious grm, "is the 'trial' cake she was talking about." He tasted it. "Ye gods!" It was all he said. And then, Mi. McSw at took the lai of batter, carried it out into the alley and emptied it into' the -arbage bo>v Five minutes later he appeared at the foot of the stairway running up from the front hall. "Lobelia," he veiled, "that batter of yours got snoiled last night ' I'm going to the meait market for a steak '"