The Happy Family by B. M. Bower (best new books to read TXT) 📖

see—he was like one of the family." She stopped and regarded the Happy Family a bit anxiously. "This new cook is a very nice little man," she added after a minute, "but after all, he isn't Patsy."

The Happy Family did not answer, and they refrained from looking at one another or at the Little Doctor.

At last Big Medicine brought his big voice into the awkward silence. "Honest to grandma, Mrs. Chip," he said earnestly, "I'd give a lot right now to have old Patsy back—er—just to have around, if it made him feel bad to leave. I reckon maybe that was my fault: I hadn't oughta pitched quite so hard, and I had oughta looked where I was throwin' m' rider. I reelize that no cook likes to have a fellow standin' on his head in a big pan uh bread-sponge, on general principles if not on account uh the bread. Uh course, we've all knowed old Patsy to take just about as great liberties himself with his sponge—but we've got to recollect that it was his dough, by cripes, and that pipe ashes ain't the same as a fellow takin' a shampoo in the pan. No, I reelize that I done wrong, and I'm willin' to apologize for it right here and now. At the same time," he ended dryly, "I will own that I'm dead stuck on little Jakie, and I'd ruther ride for the Flying U and eat Jakie's grub than any other fate I can think of right now. Whilst I'm sorry for what I done, yuh couldn't pry me loose from Jakie with a stick uh dynamite—and that's a fact, Mrs. Chip."

The Little Doctor laughed, pushed back her hair in the way she had, glanced again at the unresponsive faces of the original members of the Happy Family and gave up as gracefully as possible.

"Oh, of course Patsy's an old crank, and Jakie's a waxed angel," she surrendered with a little grimace. "You think so now, but that's because you are being led astray by your appetites, like all men. You just wait: You'll be homesick for a sight of that fat, bald-headed, cranky old Patsy bouncing along on the mess-wagon and swearing in Dutch at his horses, before you're through. If you're not so completely gone over to Jakie that you will eat nothing but what he has cooked, come on up to the house. The Countess is making a twogallon freezer of ice-cream for you, and she has a big pan of angel cake to go with it! You don't deserve it—but come along anyway." Which was another endearing way of the Little Doctor's—the way of sweetening all her lectures with something very nice at the end.

The Happy Family felt very much ashamed and very sorry that they could not feel kindly toward Patsy, even to please the Little Doctor. They sincerely wanted to please her and to have her unqualified approval; but wanting Patsy back, or feeling even the slightest regret that he was gone, seemed to them a great deal too much to ask of them. Since this is a story of cooks and of eating, one may with propriety add, however, that the invitation to ice cream and angel cake, coming though it did immediately after that wonderful supper of Jakie's, was accepted with alacrity and their usual thoroughness of accomplishment; not for the world would they have offended the Little Doctor by declining so gracious an invitation—the graciousness being manifested in her smile and her voice rather than in the words she spoke—leaving out the enchantment which hovers over the very name of angel cake and ice cream. The Happy Family went to bed that night as complacently uncomfortable as children after a Christmas dinner.

Not often does it fall to the lot of a cowboy to have served to him stuffed olives and lobster salad with mayonnaise dressing, French fried potatoes and cream puffs from the mess-tent of a roundup outfit. During the next week it fell to the lot of the Happy Family, however. When the salads and the cream puffs disappeared suddenly and the smile of Jakie became pensive and contrite, the Happy Family, acting individually but unanimously, made inquiries.

"It is that I no more possess the fresh vegetables, nor the eggs, gentlemen," purred Jakie. "Many things of a deliciousness must I now abstain because of the absence of two, three small eggs! But see, one brief arrival in the small town would quickly remedy, yes? It is that we return with haste that I may buy more of the several articles for fich I require?" He spread his small hands appealingly.

"By golly, Patsy never had no eggs—" began Slim traitorously.

"Aw, gwan! Patsy never fed yuh like Jakie does, neither!" Happy Jack was heart and soul the slave of the chef. "If Chip don't care, I'll ride over to Nelson's and git some eggs. Jakie said he'd make some more uh that pudding if he had some. It ain't but six or seven miles."

"Should you but obtain the juvenile hen, yes, I should be delighted to serve the chicken salad for luncheon. It is the great misfortune that the fresh vegetable are not obtain, but I will do the best and substitute with a cleverness fich will conceal the defect—yes?" Jakie's caps and aprons had lost their first immaculate freshness, but his manner was as royally perfect as ever and his smile as wistfully friendly.

"Well, I'll ask Chip about it," Happy Jack yielded.

Eggs and young chickens were of a truth strange to a roundup in full blast, but so was a chef like Jakie, and so were the salads, stuffed olives and cream puffs; and the white caps and the waxed mustache and the beautiful flow of words and the smile. The Happy Family was in no condition, mentally or digestively, to judge impartially. A month ago they would have whooped derision at the suggestion of riding anywhere after fresh eggs and "juvenile hens," but now it seemed to them very natural and very necessary. So much for the demoralization of expert cookery and white caps and a smile.

Chip also seemed to have fallen under the spell. It may have been that the heavenly peace which wrapped the Flying U was, in his mind, too precious to be lightly disturbed. At any rate he told Happy Jack briefly to "Go ahead, if you want to," and so left unobstructed the path to the chicken salad and cream puffs. Happy Jack wiped his hands upon an empty flour sack, rolled down his shirtsleeves and hurried off to saddle a horse.

Happy Jack did not realize that he was doing two thirds of the work about the cook-tent, but that was a fact. Because Jakie could not drive the mess-wagon team, Happy Jack had been appointed his assistant. As assistant he drove the wagon from one camping place to another, "rustled" the wood, peeled the potatoes, tended fires and washed dishes, and did the thousand things which do not require expert hands, and which, in time of stress, usually falls to the horse-wrangler. Jakie was ever smiling and always promising, in his purring voice, to cook something new and delicious, and left with the leisure which Happy's industry gave him, he usually kept his promise.

"Now, Mr. Happy," he would smile, "I am agreeable to place the confidence in your so gracious person that you prepare the potatoes, yes? And that you attend to the boiling of meat and the unpacking and arrangement of those necessary furnishings for fich you possess the great understanding. And I shall prepare the so delicious dessert of the floating island, what you call in America. Yes? Our friends will have the so delightful astonishment when they arrive. They shall exclaim and partake joyously, is it not? And for your reward, Mr. Happy, I shall be so pleased to set aside a very extensive portion of the delicious floating island, so that you can eat no more except you endanger your handsome person from the bursting. Yes?" And oh, the smile of him!

A man of sterner stuff than Happy Jack would have fallen before such guile and would have labored willingly—nay, gladly in the service of so delightful a diplomat as Jakie. Except for that willing service, Jakie would have been quite overwhelmed by the many and peculiar duties of a roundup cook. He would have been perfectly helpess before the morning and noon packing of dishes and food, and the skilful haste necessary to unpack and prepare a meal for fifteen ravenous appetites within the time limit would have been utterly impossible. Jakie was a chef, trained to his profession in well-appointed kitchens and with assistance always at hand; which is a trade apart from cooking for a roundup crew.

Happy Jack, in the fulness of time, returned with the eggs. That is, he returned with six eggs and a quart or two of a yellowish mixture thickly powdered with shell. He took the pail to Jakie and he saw the seraphic smile fade from his face and an unpleasant glitter creep into his eyes.

"It is the omelet fich you furnish, yes? The six eggs, they will not make the pudding. The omelet—I do not perceive yet the desirableness of the omelet. And the juvenile hen—yes?"

"Aw, they wouldn't sell no chickens." Happy Jack's face had gone long and scarlet before the patent displeasure of the other. "And my horse was scared uh the bucket and pitched with me."

Jackie looked again into the pail, felt gingerly the yellow mess and discovered one more egg which retained some semblance of its original form. "The misfortune distresses me," he murmured. "It is that you return hastily, Mr. Happy, and procure other eggs fich you will place unbroken in my waiting hands, yes?"

Happy Jack mopped his forehead and glanced at the sun, burning hotly down upon the prairie. They had made a short move that day and it was still early. But the way to Nelson's and back had been hot and tumultuous and he was tired. For the first time since his abject surrender to the waxed smile, Happy Jack chafed a bit under the yoke of voluntary servitude. "Aw, can't yuh cook something that don't take so many eggs?" he asked in something like his old, argumentative tone.

The unpleasant glitter in the eyes of Jakie grew more pronounced; grew even snaky, in the opinion of Happy Jack. "It is that I am no more permitted the privilege of preparing the food for fich I have the judgment, yes?" His voice purred too much to be convincing. "It is that I am no more the chef to be obeyed by my servant?"

"Aw, gwan! I ain't anybody's servant that I ever heard of!" Happy Jack felt himself bewilderedly slipping from his loyalty. What had come over Jakie, to act like this? He walked away to where there was some shade and sat down sullenly. Jakie's servant, was he? Well! "The darned little greasy-faced runt," he mumbled rebelliously, and immediately felt the better for it.

Two cigarettes brought coolness and calm. Happy Jack wanted very much to lie there and take a nap, but his conscience stirred uneasily. The boys were making a long circle that day and would come in with the appetites—and the tempers—of wolves. It occurred to Happy Jack that their appetites were much keener than they had ever been before, and he sat there a little longer while he thought about it; for Happy Jack's mind was slow and tenacious, and he hated to leave a new idea until he had squeezed it dry of all mystery. He watched Jakie moving in desultory fashion about the tent—but most of the time Jakie stayed inside.

"I betche the boys ain't gitting enough old stand-by-yuh chuck," he decided at length. "Floatin' island and stuffed olives—for them that likes stuffed olives—and salad and all that junk tastes good—but I betche the boys need a good feed uh beans!" Which certainly was brilliant of Happy Jack, even if it did take him a full hour to arrive at that conclusion. He got up immediately and started for the cook-tent.

"Say, Jakie," he began before he was inside, "ain't there time enough to boil a pot uh beans if I make yuh a good fire? I betche the boys would like a good feed—"

"A-a-hh!" Happy Jack insisted afterward that it sounded like the snarling of a wolf over a bone. "Is it that you come here to give the orders? Is it that you insult?" Followed a torrent of molten French, as it were. Followed also Jakie, with the eyes of a snake and the toothy grin of a wild animal and with a knife which Happy Jack had never seen before; a knife which caught the sunlight and glittered horridly.

Happy Jack backed out as if he had inadvertently stirred a nest of hornets. Jakie almost caught him before he took to his heels. Happy never waited to discover