“Nb; the sparrow went with the horse,” Owen replied. “And the mouse, the fly and the croton bug went with the kitchen.”
I turned with a gesture of despair.
“No homes left? ”
“I didn’t say ‘home’ — I said ‘kitchen.’
Brace up, old man! We still eat — and better food than you ever dreamed of in your hungriest youth.”
“That’s a long story,” Nellie here suggested. “We mustn’t crowd him. Let’s get washed and rested a bit, and have some of that food you’re boasting of.”
They gave me a room with a river window, and I looked out at the broad current, changed only in its lovely clearness, and at the changeless Palisades.
Changeless? I started, and seized the traveling glass still on the strap.
The high cliffs reached away to the northward, still wooded, though sprinkled with buildings; but the more broken section opposite the city was a picture of startling beauty.
The water front was green-parked, white-piered, rimmed with palaces, and the broken slopes terraced and garlanded in rich foliage. White cottages and larger buildings climbed and nestled along the sunny slopes as on the cliffs at Capri. It was a place one would go far to see.
I dropped my eyes to the nearer shore.
Again the park, the boulevard, the gracious outlines of fine architecture.
It was beautiful — undeniably beautiful — but a strange world to me. I felt like one at a play. A plain, ordinary American landscape ought not to look like a theatre curtain!
Chapter 4.
THEY called me to supper. “Most of us have our heartiest meal in the middle of the day,” my sister said.
“The average man, Victim of Copious Instruction,” added my brother-in-law, “does his work in the morning; the two hours that he has to, or the four that he usually puts in. Eight to twelve, or nine to one — that is the working day for everybody. Then home, rest, a bath maybe, and then — allow me to help you to some of our Improvements!”
I was hungry, and this simple meal looked and smelled most appetizing. There was in particular a large shining covered dish, which, being opened, gave forth so savory a steam as fairly to make my mouth water. A crisp and toothsome bread was by my plate; a hot drink, which they laughingly refused to name, proved most agreeable; a suave, cool salad followed; fruits, some of which were new to me, and most delicate little cakes, closed the meal.
They would not tell me a thing, only saying “Have some more!” and I did. Not till I had eaten, with continuous delight, three helpings from the large dish did I notice that it stood alone, so to speak.
Nellie followed my eye with her usual prompt intelligence. “Yes,” she said, “this is all. But we can send for other things in the twinkling of an eye; what would you like?”
I leaned back in my chair and looked at her reproachfully. “I would like some of that salad — not very much, please! And some of those Burbankian products yonder, and one particular brown little cake — if I can hold it.”
Nellie smiled demurely. “Oh!” she mildly remarked, “I thought for the moment that our little supper seemed scant to you.”
I glared at her, retorting, “Now I will not utter the grateful praises that were rising to my lips. I will even try to look critical and dissatisfied.” And I did, but they all laughed.
“It’s no manner of use, Uncle John,” cried my pretty niece; “we saw you eat it.”
“‘It’ indeed!” I protested. “What is this undeniably easy-to-take concoction you have stuffed me with?”
“My esteemed new brother,” Owen answered, “we have been considering your case in conclave assembled, and we think it is wiser to feed you for awhile and demand by all the rites of hospitality that you eat what is set before you and ask no questions for conscience sake. When you begin to pine, to lose your appetite, to look wan and hollow-eyed, then we may reconsider. Meanwhile we will tell you everything you want to know about food in general, and even some particulars — present dishes always excepted.”
“I will now produce information,” began Hallie, “my office being that of Food Inspector.”
“Her main purpose in bringing you here, Uncle, was to give you food and then talk about it,” said Jerrold solemnly. Hallie only made a face at him, and went on:
“We have a magnificent system of production and distribution,” she explained, “with a decreasing use of animal foods.”
“Was this a vegetarian meal?” I asked in a hollow voice.
“Mostly; but you shall have meat when you want it — better meat than you used to get, too.”
“Cold Storage Meat?”
“Oh, no; that’s long since stopped. The way we manage about meat is this: A proper proportion of edible animals are raised under good conditions — nice, healthy, happy beasts; killed so that they don’t know it! — and never kept beyond a certain time limit.
“You see,” she paused, looking for the moment like her mother, “the whole food business is changed — you don’t realize.”
“Go ahead and tell me — tell me all — my life at present is that of Rollo, I perceive, and I am most complacent after this meal.”
“Uncle, I rejoice in your discovery, I do indeed. You are an uncle after my own heart,” said Jerrold.
So my fair niece, looking like any other charming girl in a pretty evening frock, began to expound her specialty. Her mother begged to interrupt for the moment. “Let me recall to him things as they were — which you hardly know, you happy child. .Don’t forget, John, that when we were young we did not know what good food was.”
I started to protest, but she shook her finger at me.
“No, we didn’t, my dear boy. We knew ‘what we liked,’ as the people said at the picture show; but that did not make it good — good in itself or good for us. The world was ill-fed. Most of the food was below par; a good deal was injurious, some absolutely poison. People sold poison for food in 1910, don’t forget that! You may remember the row that was beginning to be made about it.”
I admitted recalling something of the sort, though it had not particularly interested me at the time.
“Well, that row went on — and gained in force. The women woke up.”
“If you have said that once since we met, my dear sister, you’ve said it forty times. I wish you would make a parenthesis in these food discussions and tell me how, when and why the women woke up.”
Nellie looked a little dashed, and Owen laughed outright.
“You stand up for your rights, John!” he said, rising and slapping me on the shoulder. “Let’s go in the other room and settle down for a chin — it’s our fate.”
“Hold him till he sees our housekeeping,” said Jerrold. I stood watching, while they rapidly placed our dishes — which I now noticed were very few — in a neat square case which stood on a side table. Everything went in out of sight; paper napkins from the same receptacle wiped the shining table; and then a smooth-running dumbwaiter took it from our sight.
“This is housework,” said Nellie, mischievously.
“I refuse to be impressed. Come back to our muttons,” I insisted. “You can tell me about your domestic sleight-of-hand in due season.”