PART 2
28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
(continued)
Fired a with housewifely wish to see her storeroom stocked with
homemade preserves, she undertook to put up her own currant jelly.
John was requested to order home a dozen or so of little pots and an
extra quantity of sugar, for their own currants were ripe and were
to be attended to at once. As John firmly believed that `my wife'
was equal to anything, and took a natural pride in her skill, he
resolved that she should be gratified, and their only crop of fruit
laid by in a most pleasing form for winter use. Home came four
dozen delightful little pots, half a barrel of sugar, and a small
boy to pick the currants for her. With her pretty hair tucked into
a little cap, arms bared to the elbow, and a checked apron which
had a coquettish look in spite of the bib, the young housewife fell
to work, feeling no doubts about her success, for hadn't she seen
Hannah do it hundreds of times? The array of pots rather amazed her
at first, but John was so fond of jelly, and the nice little jars
would look so well on the top shelf, that Meg resolved to fill them
all, and spend a long day picking, boiling, straining, and fussing
over her jelly. She did her best, she asked advice of Mrs. Cornelius,
she racked her brain to remember what Hannah did that she left
undone, she reboiled, resugared, and restrained, but that dreadful
stuff wouldn't `jell'.
She longed to run home, bib and all, and ask Mother to lend her
a hand, but John and she had agreed that they would never annoy anyone
with their private worries, experiments, or quarrels. They had
laughed over that last word as if the idea it suggested was a most
preposterous one, but they had held to their resolve, and whenever
they could get on without help they did so, and no one interfered,
for Mrs. March had advised the plan. So Meg wrestled alone with the
refractory sweetmeats all that hot summer day, and at five o'clock
sat down in her topsy-turvey kitchen, wrung her bedaubed hands,
lifted up her voice and wept.
Now, in the first flush of the new life, she had often said,
"My husband shall always feel free to bring a friend home whenever
he likes. I shall always be prepared. There shall be no flurry, no
scolding, no discomfort, but a neat house, a cheerful wife, and a
good dinner. John, dear, never stop to ask my leave, invite whom
you please, and be sure of a welcome from me."
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