Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1892-03-31
MOTHERS COOKING"
Tho Martyrdom Endured by a Pa
tient Little Wife.

The Plainfeld boys always had the
hamc 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 Massachu-
sctts as the sage of Plainfeld, and
Lute's mothcr-she was Kellogg be-
fore the judge married her-she had
more faculty than a dozen of your
girls nowadays and her cooking was
talked about ywhere-never was
another woman, as folks said, could
cook like Mis- Baker. The boys
Lute's friends-nsed to hang around
the back porch of mornings just to get
some of her doughnuts; she was always
considerate and liberal to growing
boys. Maybe Lutte wouldn't have been
so popular if it hadn't been for these
doughnuts, and maybe he wouldn't
have been so smart if it hadn't been for
all 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; then he taught school win
ter, for Judge Baker said that nobody
could amount to much in the world un-
less he'd taught school spell. Lutte
set on being a lawyer, and so present
ly he went down to Springfield and
read and studied in Judge Morris of
flee, aad Judge Morris wrote a letter
home TO the Bakers once testifying to
Lute's ''probity" and 'acumen"-
things that arc never heard tell of ex-
cept 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 lie up and piked off to Chi
cago, and there he hung out his shin
gle and joined a literary social and pro-
ceeded to get rich and famous. The
next spring, Judge Baker fell off the
woodshcd while he was shingling it,
and it Jared him so he kind of dropped
and piled round 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 like
ly girl as there was in the township.
Lutte had always had hankering for
En- and En- thought there never was
another such a young fellow as Lutte;
She understood him perfectly, having
sung in the choir with him two years.
The young couple went west well pro.
vided.
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 German girl that was just
over from the vineyards of the Rhine
country.
Lutte" says En-, "Hulda doesn't
know much about cooking"
$50 | sec," 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.
Elm 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 cordial bet that by and by
En- would make famous cook of the
obtuse but willing immigrant This
moral backing buoyed En- up consider
able, until one evening in an unguardet
moment Lutte expressed pining fol
some doughnuts ''like those mother
Makes" and that casual remark made
En- unhappy. But next evening wher
Lutte came home there were dough
nuts on the table, beautiful, big, pie
thoric dougbnuts that faily reekct
with the homely, delicious senti
ment of New England. Lutte ate one
EN- felt hurt.
II guess it's because I've eaten Sc
much else" explained Lutte, "but some
how or other they don't taste like
mothers"
Next day En- fed the rest of tht
doughnuts to poor man who came ant
said he was starving. THANK you
marm," said he, with his heart full o.
gratitude and his mouth full of dough
nuts; II ha'n't hadanything as good a:
this since | left Connecticut twent,
years ago."
That. little subtlety consoled EN-
but still she found it hard to bear VI
under her apparent inability to do he
duty by Lute's critical palate. One
when Lutte brought Col. Hi Thoma
home to dinner they had chicken pie
The colonel praised it and passed hi
plate third time.
''Oh, but you ought to eat some o
mothers chicken pie" said Lutte
"Mother never puts an under crust il
her chicken pies and that makes zen
juicier."
Same way when they had fried porl
and potatoes; Lutte couldn't understan,
why the flesh of the wallowing, carniv
orous Iyestern hog shouldn't be a
white and firm and sweet as the mea
of the swill fed Yankee pig. And VIII.
were the Hubbard squashes SO tasteles
and why was maple sirup so very dii
ferent? Yes, amid all his professiona
duties Lutte found time to note and re
mark upon this and other simila
things, and of course En- was-by i'm
plication, at least-held responsible TO
them all.
And En- did try so hard, so rery hard
to correct the evils and to answer tn
hypercritical demands of Lute's foolish
ly petted and spoiled appetite. Sh
warred valorously with butchers
grocers and hucksters; she sent dow
east to Mother Baker for all the ia
nous family recipes; she wrestled IL
speech and in practice with that awfu
Hulda; she experimental long ant
patiently; she blistered her pretty fac
and burned her little hands over tina
kitchen range-yes, slow, constan
martyrdom that conscientious wifi
willingly endured for years in her en-
thusiastic determination to do her dut