The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1889-06-05
The Left-0ut Part.
BY CLARISSA POTTER.


Mamie was learning to cook. She
was twelve years old, and her mother
had said, "Surely, girl so old as that
ought to know how to make good
bread and cake. So, every baking.
morning, she was expected to speno
one hour in the pantry, watching and
helping her mother put together the
ingredients of plain, wholesome FOOD,
and to have care of the fire and ovens
heat while the batter she had stirred
and the dough she had rolled were
baking.
One evening, not long before Ma
mics bedtime, her mother said, look
ing up from her sewing in the sitting
room:
"You may set the bread-sponge to:
night entirely alone, Mamie, ana l
will not 60 out with you into the pan.
trv, First get ready your yeast and
-four and milk, just as / have taught
and shown you, and tomorrow morn,
ing you may knead out the loaves, anu
take the care yourself of their rising
and baking"
Mamie was very glad and proud t'
be so trusted, and, tying on her big
white cooking-apron, darted into tho
pantry, after carefully washing and
driving her hands, eager for her papa
to see that his little girl could make
the best Of bread.
The board came down
from its nail with an important LITTLE
fiirt and bang. Then she sifted 4 pan,
full of flour, and brought butter and
milk and a yeast-cake from the cellar
and hot water from the Kitchen, and
then was ready to mix her Spnnge.
The yeast-cake she put into little
warm water to dissolve. Then into
the big bread-bowl she carefully meas
ured four cups of milk, three cups o.
water,-iust hot enough to bring the
mixture to blood-heat,--one table
spoonful of salt, three tablespoontuls
of sugar, and half cup OF butter
Into this mixing she stirred flour unit
she had stiff dough, then kneaded II
on the bread. board fifteen minutes
and put it back in the bowl, 4 great
smooth, heavy lump, and, closely coy
ering it, closed for the night, for great
er warmth, the pantry's door and win
dow, thinking how she would find III
the morning, instead of the solid white
mass, that hardly third filled the
bread-bowl, a trimming painful o.
light sponge.
But she didn't. The heavy lumr
Law flattened out in the bottom of the
bread-bowl, with no more hope OF rls
ing and being fit to knead into puffy
white loaves than a great wad OF sticky
clay.
iAnd all because you forgot to pu1
Yeast in the latter" Mamie's mother
said, discovering the cup Of dissolveC
Yeast pushed aside on the pantry shelf
when called the next morning by hel
little girl to see what allied her bread
sponge. NJ
put in everything else, the butter anc
salt and sugar,-everything but thai
yeast-cake, that I had set dissolving
and then forgot. But how strang,
that such little thing-only a table
spoonful of yeast-water-c could have
SPOILED my bread! Just think, mann
ma, all that that great flat cake O
heavy dough needed to make it riSl
and fill the bowl with puffy, feathery
sponge, was just this little bit of yeast
and because / didn't put it in my
bread. batter it is all spoiled and vast
ed,n-and Mamie, with a very sober
little face, scraped the clayey, sticky
mass into the swill-bucket.
But it was not wasted,-the lesson
that those spoiled loaves taught.
Mamie had beer thinking that i,
didn't very much matter if she did not
take Christ rs her Saviour, SO long as
she was truthful, ohedient, kind lit
tie girl. She didn't see that she need
ed to be Christian if she was only
good, sunny-tempcred little girl. Bu1
the left-out yeast, the leaven that th'
bread-sponge spoiled without, in spite
of the good things it held. its suga
and milk and butter, led her to SEE
that her life and every other life needs
the "little leaven'-Christ's love-il
it to make it expand and fit for God'!
use; for without this leavcn our live
will be wasted and our souls casta
ways.