“’If your mamma would but put you into the scullery, young miss, to learn to wash plates and scour the pans out, she’d make a woman of you,’ used I to think to myself when a silly child, who thought itself very clever to hinder other people’s work, would come hanging about in the kitchen, doing nothing but teaze and find fault, for that’s what a girl can always do.

“It was very aggravating, you may be sure, dears, (you see I can talk to you quite reasonably, because you’re so nicely behaved;)—­it was very aggravating, of course; but I used to make allowances for them.  Says I to myself, ’Cook, you’ve had the blessing of being brought up to hard work ever since you were a babby.  You’ve had to earn your daily bread.  Nobody knows how that brings people to their senses till they’ve tried; so don’t you go and be cocky, because ladies and gentlemen, and ladies’ and gentlemen’s young ladies and young gentlemen, are not quite so sensible as you are.  Who knows but what, if you’d been born to do nothing, you might have been no wiser than them!  It’s lucky for you you’re only a cook; but don’t you go and be cocky, that’s all!  Make allowances; it’s the secret of life!’

“So you see, dears, I did make allowances; and after the eight little pets was safe in bed till next morning, I used to feel quite composed, and pitiful-like towards them, poor little dears!  But certainly, when morning came, and the oldest young master was home for the holidays, it was a trying time for me, and I couldn’t think of the allowances any longer.  Either he wouldn’t get up and come down till everyone else had had their breakfast, and so he wanted fresh water boiled, and fresh tea made, and another muffin toasted, and more bacon fried; or else he was up so outrageous early, that he was scolding because there was no hot water before the fire was lit—­ bless you, he hadn’t a bit of sense in his head, poor boy, not a bit!  And how should he?  Why, he went to school as soon as he was out of petticoats, and was set to all that Latin and Greek stuff that never puts anything useful into folks’ heads, but so much more chatter and talk; so he came back as silly as he went, poor thing!  Dear me, on a wet day, after lesson-time, those boys were like so many crazy creatures.  ‘Cook, I must make a pie,’ says one.  ’There’s a pie in the oven already, Master James,’ says I.  ’I don’t care about the pie in the oven,’ says he, ’I want a pie of my own.  Bring me the flour, and the water, and the butter, and all the things—­and, above all, the rolling-pin—­and clear the decks, will you, I say, for my pie.  Here goes!’ And here used to go, my dears, for Master James had no sense, as I told you; and so he’d shove all my pots and dishes away, one on the top of the other; and let me be as busy as I would, and dinner ever so near ready, the dresser must be cleared, and everything must give way to his pie!  His pie, indeed—­I wish I had had the management of his pie just then!  I’d have taught him what it was to come shaking the rolling-pin at the head of a respectable cook, who wanted to get her business done properly, as in duty bound!