"Picnicky makeshifts" he called them,--"railroad rations"--"bread and leavings," and when he saw these piles on piles of sandwiches, listed only as "No.1," "No.2" "No.3," and so on, his benevolent intention wavered.But he pulled himself together and took a plateful, assorted.
"Come on, Porne," he said, "we'll play it's a Sunday school picnic," and he drew himself a cup of coffee, finding hot milk, cream and sugar crystals at hand."I never saw a cheap joint where you could fix it yourself, before," he said,--and suspiciously tasted the mixture.
"By jing! That's coffee!" he cried in surprise."There's no scum on the milk, and the cream's cream!" Five cents! She won't get rich on this."Then he applied himself to his "No.1" sandwich, and his determined expression gave way to one of pleasure."Why that's bread--real bread!
I believe she made it herself!"
She did in truth,--she and Julianna with Hector as general assistant.
The big oven was filled several times every morning: the fresh rolls disappeared at breakfast and supper, the fresh bread was packed in the lunch pails, and the stale bread was even now melting away in large bites behind the smiling mouths and mustaches of many men.Perfect bread, excellent butter, and "What's the filling I'd like to know?"More than one inquiring-minded patron split his sandwich to add sight to taste, but few could be sure of the flavorsome contents, fatless, gritless, smooth and even, covering the entire surface, the last mouthful as perfect as the first.Some were familiar, some new, all were delicious.
The six sandwiches were five cents, the cup of coffee five, and the little "drop cakes," sweet and spicy, were two for five.Every man spent fifteen cents, some of them more; and many took away small cakes in paper bags, if there were any left.
"I don't see how you can do it, and make a profit," urged Mr.Eltwood, making a pastorial call."They are so good you know!"Diantha smiled cheerfully."That's because all your ideas are based on what we call 'domestic economy,' which is domestic waste.I buy in large quantities at wholesale rates, and my cook with her little helper, the two maids, and my own share of the work, of course, provides for the lot.Of course one has to know how.""Whenever did you find--or did you create?--those heavenly sandwiches?"he asked.
"I have to thank my laundress for part of that success," she said.
"She's a Dane, and it appears that the Danes are so fond of sandwiches that, in large establishments, they have a 'sandwich kitchen' to prepare them.It is quite a bit of work, but they are good and inexpensive.
There is no limit to the variety."
As a matter of fact this lunch business paid well, and led to larger things.
The girl's methods were simple and so organized as to make one hand wash the other.Her house had some twenty-odd bedrooms, full accommodations for kitchen and laundry work on a large scale, big dining, dancing, and reception rooms, and broad shady piazzas on the sides.Its position on a corner near the business part of the little city, and at the foot of the hill crowned with so many millionaires and near millionaires as could get land there, offered many advantages, and every one was taken.
The main part of the undertaking was a House Worker's Union; a group of thirty girls, picked and trained.These, previously working out as servants, had received six dollars a week "and found." They now worked an agreed number of hours, were paid on a basis by the hour or day, and "found" themselves.Each had her own room, and the broad porches and ball room were theirs, except when engaged for dances and meetings of one sort and another.
It was a stirring year's work, hard but exciting, and the only difficulty which really worried Diantha was the same that worried the average housewife--the accounts.
