The Egg and I Read Online Free Page B

at one end of the table and Daddy at the other, if he was home, Gammy sat at Daddy's right and we children were spaced to eliminate fighting. Daddy had made a rule and it was strictly enforced, whether or not he was home, that only subjects of general interest were to be discussed at the table. This eliminated all such contributions from us, as "There is a boy in my room at school who eats flies," and "Myrna Hepplewaite stuck out her tongue at me and I said bah, bah, bah and she hit me back and I told her mother. . . ." In fact, it precluded our entering the conversation at all except on rare occasions which I think was and is an excellent idea. I resent heartily dining at someone's house and having all my best stories interrupted by "Not such a big bite, Hubert," or "Mummy, didn't you say the Easter Bunny came down the chimney?"
    As soon as we were settled in Laurelhurst, Daddy decided that in addition to Mary's, Darsie's and my singing, piano, ballet, folk dancing, French and dramatics and Cleve's clarinet lessons, we should all have lessons in general usefulness and self-reliance. His first step in this direction was to have Mary and Cleve and me paint the roof of our three-story house. The roof was to be red and we were each given a bucket of paint, a wide brush, a ladder and some vague general instructions about painting. It seems that there was a shortage of ladders so Cleve and I were on the same one—he was just a rung or two ahead of me and both of us biting our lips and dipping our brushes and slapping on the red paint for all we were worth. We weren't working hard because we liked this job; we didn't, we just thought it was another one of Daddy's damnfool notions and we wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Cleve and I had just finished the small area over the back porch and were moving up when something went wrong and Cleve dumped his bucket of paint over my head and down the back of my neck. Gammy cleaned me off with turpentine but she grumbled about it and said, "It's a wonder to me you aren't all dead with the ideas some Men get." We finished the roof, though, with Daddy lowering me by the heels so that I could paint the dormers of the attic, but it was a scary, slippery job and was an outstanding failure as far as a lesson in self-reliance was concerned. Daddy's next step was the purchase of a .22 rifle and a huge target. Gammy had hysterics. " Guns ," she bawled, "Guns are for Huns and heathens. Those children will kill each other—please, Darsie, don't give them a gun." So we learned to shoot. Mary and I were both rather nearsighted and very poor shots but Cleve was a good shot and practised all the time. Cleve became such an expert marksman that he took up hunting when he was only ten years old and Daddy thought it was a fine idea until Cleve drew a bead and fired at a quail that was perched on the sill of a huge curved bay window of a neighbor's house. None of the neighbors was killed but the bay window was very expensive and so the gun was put away for a while and Daddy bought us an enormous bow and arrow and a big straw target. While he and Cleve were practising archery, Mary and I were learning to cook. Mother supervised this herself as she was a marvellous cook and Gammy was the world's worst. Mother taught us to put a pinch of clove and lots of onion in with a pot roast; to make French dressing with olive oil and to rub the bowl with garlic; to make mayonnaise and Thousand Island dressing; to cook a sliver of onion with string beans; never to mash potatoes until just before serving; to measure the ingredients for coffee; and always to scald out the teapot.
    Gammy taught us that when you bake a cake you put in anything you can lay your hands on. A little onion, several old jars of jam, leftover batter cake dough, the rest of the syrup in the jug, a few grapes, cherries, raisins, plums or dates, and always to use drippings instead of butter or shortening. Her cakes were simply