eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those
antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled
egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly
thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had
laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is,
perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.

Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was
certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her
hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The
situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a
particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely
ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique.
Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers,
laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our
daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess
some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it
was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the
slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that
water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a
salary.

Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with
Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was
a culinary queen. She was an epicurean caterer. Letitia's slate-pencil
coffee was ambrosia for the gods, sweetest nectar, by the side of the
dishwater that cook prepared. I began to feel quite proud of her. She
grew to be an adept in the art of boiling water. If we could have lived
on that fluid, everything would have moved clockworkily.