The Newtown bee., 1892-03-18
Lute's Mothers Doughnuts.

y the old town ever turned out. Well, he came by t naturally. Judge Baker was known all over western Massachusetts as the sage of Plainfield and Lute's mother-she was a Kellogg before the judge married her-she had more faculty than a dozen of your girls nowadays and her cooking was talked about every where-never was another woman, as folks said, could cook 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 Lute wouldn't have been so popular if it hadn't been for those doughnuts and maybe he wouldn't 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.
 Lute went to Amherst College and did well; was valedctorian; then he taught school Winter, for Judge Baker said that nobody could amount to much in the world unless he'd taught school a spell. Lute was set on being a lawyer and so presently he went down to Spring field and read and studied in Judge Nor riss office and Judge Morris wrote a let ter home to the Bakers once testifying to Lutes "probity'' and "acumen," things that are never heard tell of except high up in the legal profession.
 How Lute came to get the Western fe- yer 1 can't say, but get it he did and one Winter he up and piked off to Chicago and there he hung out his shingle and joined literary social and proceeded 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 pined round a spell and then one day up and died. Lute 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 (every body called her Elm for short), pretty as picture and as likely girl as there was in the township. Lute had al- way IIdu i1hhCIlli lol I<Li anu H. III thought there never was another such a young fellow as Lute; she understood him perfectly, having sung in the choir with him two years. The young couple went West well provided.
 Lute and Em went to housekeeping in Chicago. Em wanted to do her own work, but Lute wouldn't hear to it; so they hired German girl that was just over from the vineyards of the Rhine country.
 ''Lute,'' says Em, "Hulda doesn't know much about cooking"
 ''So see,' says Lute feelingly. "She green as grass; you'll have to teach her."
 Hulda could swing a hoe and wield d spade deftly, but of the cuisine she knew somewhat less than nothing. Elm had lots of patience and pluck, but she found teaching Hulda how to cook a precious hard job. Lute was amiable enough at first; used to laugh it off with d cordial bet that by and by Elm would make a famous cook of the obtuse but willing duO. Ills dI pdShlIS puol GU Elm up considerably, until one evening in an unguarded moment Lute expressed pining for some doughnuts Hike those mother makes" and that casual remark made Elm unhappy; but next evening when Lute came home there were dough- nuts on the table-beautiful, big, pleth- oric doughnuts that fairly rocked with the homely, delicious sentiment of New England. Lute ate one. Elm felt hurt. II guess it's because I've eaten so much else,'' explained Lute, "but somehow or other they don't taste like mother's.''
 Next day Elm fed the rest of the dough- nuts to a poor man who said he was starving. "Thank you marm," said he, with his heart full of gratitude and his mouth full of doughnuts; II ha'nt had anything as good as this since 1 left Con- necticut, twenty years ago."
 That little subtlety consoled Elm, but still she found it hard to bear up under her apparent inability to do her duty by Lute's critical palate. Once when Lute SOiOLCl III to ner, 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 Lute. Moth CT never puts an under crust in her chick en pies, and that makes 'em jucier.''
 Same way when they had fried pork and potatoes: Lute couldn't understand why the flesh of the wallowing. earnivo- rous 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, Lute found time to noteand remark upon this and other similar things, and of course Em was, by implication at least, held responsible for them all.
 And Elm did try so hard, so very hard, to correct the evils and to answer the hy- percriticaI demands of Lute's foolishiy
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