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