The Foreigner eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 330 pages of information about The Foreigner.

The Foreigner eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 330 pages of information about The Foreigner.
To overcome this difficulty, Anka hit upon the simple but very effective expedient of entrusting to her neighbours, who would later be her guests, the preparing of certain dishes according to their various abilities and inclinations, keeping close account in her own shrewd mind of what each one might be supposed to produce from the materials furnished, and stimulating in her assistants the laudable ambition to achieve the very best results.  Hence, in generous quantities she distributed flour for bread and cakes in many varieties, rice and beans and barley, which were to form the staple portion of the stews, cabbage and beets and onions in smaller measure—­for at this season of the year the price was high—­sides of pork, ropes of sausages, and roasts of beef from neck and flank.  Through the good offices of the butcher boy that supplied the New West Hotel, purchased with Anka’s shyest smile and glance, were secured a considerable accumulation of shank bones and ham bones, pork ribs and ribs of beef, and other scraps too often despised by the Anglo-Saxon housekeeper, all of which would prove of the greatest value in the enrichment of the soups.  For puddings there were apples and prunes, raisins and cranberries.  The cook of the New West Hotel, catching something of Anka’s generous enthusiasm, offered pies by the dozen, and even the proprietor himself, learning of the preparations and progress, could think of nothing so appropriate to the occasion as a case of Irish whiskey.  This, however, Anka, after some deliberation, declined, suggesting beer instead, and giving as a reason her experience, namely, that “whiskey make too quick fight, you bet.”  A fight was inevitable, but it would be a sad misfortune if this necessary part of the festivities should occur too early in the programme.

Gradually, during the days of the week immediately preceding the ceremony, there began to accumulate in the shacks about, viands of great diversity, which were stored in shelves, in cupboards,—­where there were any,—­under beds, and indeed in any and every available receptacle.  The puddings, soups and stews, which, after all, were to form the main portion of the eating, were deposited in empty beer kegs, of which every shack could readily furnish a few, and set out to freeze, in which condition they would preserve their perfect flavour.  Such diligence and such prudence did Anka show in the supervision of all these arrangements, that when the day before the feast arrived, on making her final round of inspection, everything was discovered to be in readiness for the morrow, with the single exception that the beer had not arrived.  But this was no over-sight on the part of Jacob, to whom this portion of the feast had been entrusted.  It was rather due to a prudence born of experience that the beer should be ordered to be delivered at the latest possible hour.  A single beer keg is an object of consuming interest to the Galician and subjects his sense of honour to

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The Foreigner from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.