The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-04-01
A WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS, STORY
Lute's Mothers Doughnuts.-A True
Story RetOld by Eugene Field.

Lute's Mothers Doughnuts.-A True
Story Retold by Eugene Field.
The Plainield boys always had the
name of being smart, and Igness Lutte
Baker was just about the smartest boy
the old town ever turned out. Well, he
came by it naturally. Judge Baker was
known all over Western Massachusetts,
as the age of Plalntield, and Lutte S
mOther-she was a Kellogg before the
Judge married her-Shehad more faculty
than dozen of your girls nowadays, and
her cooking was talked about every
where-never was another woman, as
folks said, could cock like Miss Baker
The bOys-Lute's friends-used to hang
around the back porch of mornings just
to get some of her doughnutS; she was
always considerate and liberal to grow
ing boys. Maybe Lutte wouldn't have
been so popular if it hadn't been for
those dOughnuts, and maybe he would
not have been so smart but for the
good things his mother fed into him.
Always did believe there was piety and
wisdom in New England victuals. Lutte
went to Amherst College and did well !;
was valedictorian; then he taught school
winter, for Judge Baker said that no.
body could amount to much in the
world unless he'd taught school spell.
Lutte was set on being lawyer, and so
presently he went down to Springfield
and read and studied in Judge Morris S
office, and Judge Morris wrote letter
home to the Bakers once testifying to
Lute's ''probity" and acumen, things
that are never heard tell of except high
up in the legal profession.
How Lutte came to get the Western
fever | can t say, but get it he did, and
one winter he up and paoked off to Chi
cago, and there he hung out his single
and joined u literary social and pro-
ceeded to get rich and famous. The
next spring Judge Baker fell off the
woOdshed while he was shingling it, and
it Jared him so he kind of dropped and
pinned round a spell and then one day up
and died. Lutte had to come back home
and settle up the estate.
When he went West again he took a
wife with him-Emma Cowles that was
Everybody called her En- for short),
pretty as picture and as likely girl as
there was in the township. Lutte had
always had laundering for En- and EN-
thought there never was another such
young fellow as Lutte; she understood
him perfectly, having sung in the choir
with him two years. The young couple
went West well provided.
Lutte and EN- went to housekeeping in
Chicago. En- wanted to do her own
work, but Lutte wouldn't hear to it; so
they hired a German girl that was just
over from the vineyards of the Rhine
country.
Lutte" said En-, "Hulda doesn't
know much about cooking"
$50 l see," says Lutte feelingly. "She's
green as grass; you'll have to teach
her."
Hulda could swing hoe and WELD a
spade deity, but of the cuisine she knew
somewhat less than nothing. EN- had
lots of patience and pluck, but she
found teaching Hulda how to cook
precious hard job. Lutte was amiable
enough at first: used to laugh it off with
a cordial bet that by and by En- would
make famous cook of the Obtuse but
willing immigrant. This moral backing
buOyed EN- up considerably, until one
evening in an unguarded moment Lutte
expressed pining for some doughnuts
like those mother Makes" and that
casual remark made EN- unhappy; but
next evening when Lutte came home
there were doughnuts on the table
beautiful, big plethOric doughnuts that
fairly reeked with the homely delicious
sentiment of New England. Lutte ate
one. En- felt hurt. II guess it's because
I've eaten so much else, 'explaincd Lutte,
but somehow or other they don't taste
like mothers"
Next day En- fed the rest of the
dOughnuts to poor man who said he
was starving. "Thank you marm,"
said he, with his heart full of gratitude
and his mouth full of doughnuts; 81
haint had anything as good as this since
! left Connecticut, twenty years ago."
That little subtlety consoled En-, but
still she found it hard to bear up under
her apparent inability to DO her duty by
Lute's critical palate. Once when Lutte
brought Colonel Hi Thomas home to
dinner they had chicken pie. The
Colonel praised it and passed his plate a
third time.
"Oh, but. you ought to eat some of
mothers chicken pie, said Lutte.
mother never puts an under crust in
her chic ken pies, and that makes 'em
juicier."
Some way when they had fried pork
and potatoes. Lutte couldn't understand
why the flesh of the wallowing, carniv-
vOrOus western hog shouldn't be as white
and firm and sweet as the meat of the
swill-fed Yankee pig. And why were
the Hubbard squashes so tasteless and
why was maple syrup so very different?
Yes, amid all his professional duties,
Lutte found time to note and remark
upon this and other similar things, and
of course En- was, by implicati at
least, held responsible for them all.
And EN- did try so hard, so very hard
to correct the evils and to answer the
hypereritical demands of Lutes foolish
ly petted and spoiled appetite. She
warred vigorously with butchers, grocers
and hucksterers; she sent down east to
Mother Baker for all the famous family