1D14. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1 156 
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WOMAN AND HOME 
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11 
e • 
• • 
That Pantry of Mandy’s 
Respectfully Dedicated to All the Other Ephraims 
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... 
T IIE new house was going to be built 
in the Spring. For years it had been 
planned for and dreamed over. Nearly 
every Winter for the past 10 years, 
Ephraim had drawn logs to the mill to 
be worked up into lumber, until now, 
there were several large piles of it, under 
the long shed at the south side of the 
big barn. The lumber was in all shades 
of seasoning, from the bright yellow of 
newness to silver gray of age. This Win¬ 
ter the material for framework was fast 
filling all extra space under the shed. 
The general plan of the house had been 
settled long ago. It would be a square 
two-story affair with a large hall up¬ 
stairs, extending the whole width of the 
house, so that the quilting frame could 
be set up and left until a quilt was done, 
with no trouble about being in the way. 
At each corner of the hall a door would 
open into a bedroom and Mainly had the 
rolls of rag carpeting all ready for those 
rooms. Downstairs there was to he a 
She Had Painted Wiiat Little Wood¬ 
work There Was. 
parlor and parlor bedroom in the north 
end; a long narrow dining room and pan¬ 
try were to fill the center portion, and 
the kitchen and kitchen bedroom were 
to be in the south end. Doors were to 
open on the front porch from the parlor 
and dining room. The end of the dining 
room next the pantry was to have cup¬ 
board doors opening into both dining room 
and pantry "like they had up at Silas 
Endicott’s new house.” 
Mandy had but to close her eyes to 
see how the whole house would look 
when done. There was one place, how¬ 
ever, that seemed to be always in her 
thoughts, and that was the pantry. In 
the old house convenience had been com¬ 
pletely disregarded. The pantry was 
nearly as large as the kitchen, and was 
situated at the farther side of the sit¬ 
ting room. This had been a sore trial to 
Mandy ever since she had come as a bride 
to the little house. In those first years 
there was too much to be done outside to 
leave much time for making changes in 
the house. Once, when Mandy had 
asked if they couldn’t take the tiny box 
of a kitchen bedroom and turn it into 
a pantry and tear out the shelves of the 
much larger room for a bedroom, Ephraim 
had said: 
"Now don’t you get in a hurry for 
changes in the old house, Mandy. Just 
you hold your horses a while longer and 
when we build the new house you can 
have all the pantries you want, and just 
where you want ’em.” 
It wouldn’t have been nearly so bad, 
but Ephraim and the boys used the pan¬ 
try as a storage for all sorts of their 
things. The top shelves were always 
tilled with tools, bits of board, pieces of 
wood for ax and hammer handles, oil 
cans and even parts of their farm tools. 
Nails, bolts, hooks and staples were every¬ 
where. Back of the door, there hung 
nearly always an assortment of harness 
straps and pieces of reins that for some 
reason or other could not stay at the 
barn. At any time Mandy was liable to 
find a hammer or a bottle of horse lina- 
ment on one of her lower shelves, where 
it had been hastily left, for her to put 
away and produce again at any time of 
day or night, that it might be wanted. 
“Where’s the hammer, Mandy?” had 
long been a familiar demand, and had she 
not been the peaceable soul she was, there 
would have been trouble long ago. 
That was a busy Spring and Summer 
for everyone, but by the first of November 
the new house was practically done. Of 
course there was the papering and paint¬ 
ing to be done, but Mandy would man¬ 
age to do that somehow before Spring. 
Ephraim took no sort of a fancy to 
stained and varnished woodwork. 
"All right for style, mabbe,” he said, 
“but ye can’t beat Mandy’s paintin’ for 
good hard wear.” 
For Mandy the Summer had been es¬ 
pecially burdensome, and when November 
came she was tired, as she said, to the 
very marrow of her bones. Extra help 
meant extra work for her, and as no one 
had any time to spend on the garden ex¬ 
cept to plow it, she had worked early 
and late, with occasional help from the 
two boys, when they were not needed by 
their father. There was but one room 
really finished to Mandy’s satisfaction, 
and that was her pantry. She had paint¬ 
ed what little woodwork there was, a soft 
yellow. The walls and ceiling she had 
papered with washable wallpaper of a 
tile design in green and cream color. 
The only thing in the little room was an 
old kitchen table with a white oilcloth 
cover. It stood at the right of the cup¬ 
boards, that opened through into the din¬ 
ing room. She had had the carpenter 
build a lower cupboard under the others 
for her tins, kettles and such things. But 
best of all there wasn’t a nail or a hook 
anywhere in sight in the room. 
Sometime when Ephraim - had pur¬ 
chased the gasoline engine and had put 
the water into the barn perhaps she 
would have a sink with the water in the 
house. She would have it where the old 
table stood now, and in the dim distance 
—she hardly dared let herself think of it 
at all—there would be one of those glor¬ 
ious kitchen cabinets standing in that 
free space opposite the cupboard. Once, 
when she and Ephraim had been to town, 
she had seen one in the window of a 
furniture store. She had called his at¬ 
tention to it saying that “they must be 
grand things,” but Ephraim had said de¬ 
cidedly : 
"They may be all right for style, Man¬ 
dy, but it strikes me a thing like that 
would look a lot better in a settin’ room 
than stuck off out of sight in a kitchen.” 
One day near the middle of November, 
Mandy received a card from the woman 
in Constable, who was to weave the new 
yarn carpet for the parlor, asking her 
to come, if possible, that week. There 
was some question about the shading of 
the wide red stripe that must be settled 
before she began to weave. 
The yarn for that carpet had taken 
months to prepare and color, and was 
Mandy’s especial pride. She decided to 
see to it at once and by 10 o’clock the 
next forenoon, Mandy, driving old Billy, 
was traveling down the Belmont hills 
toward Malone with her mind intent on 
that red stripe. 
After she had gone Ephraim thought 
of .. loose plank in Billy’s stall, and 
thinking this would be a good time to 
mend it, he went to the old house to get 
his tools. The little house had been left 
where it stood, a little back and to the 
right of the new one. In the Spring it 
would be moved to the barn and the 
frame used for part of a new cowshed. 
Ephraim found his hammer, and with 
some difficulty sorted out some long 
spikes from an assortment of odds 
and ends on one of the shelves of 
the deserted pantry. With both pockets 
full, he want back to warm up a while 
before going to the barn. 
Standing beside the open oven door he 
tossed his mittens on the stove shelf to 
warm and began shifting the spikes so 
that they would all be in one pocket. 
"What in time, did I take so many 
for,” he grumbled, “don’t need more’n 
half as many to fix that stall. Guess 
I’ll lay part of ’em up so ’t they won’t 
get lost up ’t the barn.” 
He started for the pantry, pulling them 
out as he went, but at the door he stopped 
and stared as if he had seen the room for 
the first time only. Not a shelf in sight! 
lie went in and opened a cupboard door. 
The top shelves held the neat stacks of 
Mandy’s best dishes, the lower ones, the 
everyday dishes, with not a bit of extra 
space. 
He opened the lower cupboard. One 
shelf, but at one end were the piles of 
bread and cake tins, and at the other the 
bluing bottle, a few birs of soap, a box 
<>f stove blackening and the cleanser box. 
Around the sides of the cupboard hung 
graniteware dishes, and a row of kettles 
stood on folded papers in the bottom. One 
other cupboard remained, but here on the 
lower shelf was the bread jar. the dough¬ 
nut jar, and the cookie can. On the up¬ 
per one there were a couple of Mandy’s 
custard pies, a maple-sugar cake and 
some other eatables. The four small 
drawers held knives and forks, dish tow¬ 
els and such things. 
Ephraim straightened up: “Well, if 
that wouldn’t jest take ye to the fair!” 
He opened the top cupboard again, care¬ 
fully deposited the spike- in the top plat¬ 
ter of Mandy’s best “set,” and went back 
to the oven door to think it over. 
“I haven’t felt more’n half at home in 
this new house since ’twas done,” he 
mused, “and I never knew what the trou¬ 
ble was ’til this minute. It’s that blamed 
pantry. Guess I’d better fix it today 
while she’s away an’ give her a surprise. 
Don’t see how in time she’s got along with 
it in the shape it’s in.” 
The door opened and the elder boy 
came in. 
“I thought you were going to fix Bil¬ 
ly’s stall,” he said. “I’ve been waiting 
for you ’til I got sick of it.” 
“Billy’s stall can wait, Lant,” said 
Ephraim. “I’m going to put the shelves 
in that pantry today. ’Taint my fault 
it hasn’t been done before, but when I of¬ 
fered to do it, yer ma said ‘never mind 
the shelves’ and so I sort of let it hang 
on.” 
“But, pa,” cried Lant, “she told me 
she liked it just the way it was and she 
said we boys have got to-” 
“See here,” broke in Ephraim, “I saw 
pantries long before you was born, and I 
“Say, Mandy, Jest Give Me The Ham¬ 
mer And a Tack.” 
know what I’m talking about. That 
don’t look no more like a pantry than I 
do, an’ I’m going to fix it. All you have 
to do is to step lively and do as yer told. 
We’ll have to work if we get it done 
before she comes back.” 
It was nearly four o’clock, and Mandy 
was nearly home when old Billy, throw¬ 
ing up his head to make his customary 
dash for home, broke his check rein and 
went trotting gayly up the driveway with 
the broken check flying wildly. The pan¬ 
try was done and they had just finished 
putting “the things” into it when they 
saw Mandy drive in. 
“There,” said Ephraim, "when yer ma 
once gets the papers on those shelves it 
will be as slick as a whistle.” 
Ephraim saw the broken check and 
hurried out so that he was not there 
to see the look of utter dismay on Man¬ 
dy’s face when she saw what had been 
going on. The table had been taken out 
and placed in the kitchen, and the entire 
wall space to within two feet of the ceil¬ 
ing and the floor was covered by those 
detestable shelves. Worst of all, there 
before her lay the same old collection of 
tools, nails, bolts and every thing just 
as it had been before, and left for her 
to arrange and care for of course. She 
was just turning away sick to her very 
soul, when Ephraim came in with a rush. 
“Say, Mandy, jest gim me the ham¬ 
mer and a tack and I think I can fix 
this check rein so’s twill be all right.” 
But Mandy turned suddenly into the din¬ 
ing room and went upstairs. 
Ephraim stared a minute, and then 
went to fumble away after the tacks 
himself. 
“Blame the things anyway; he knew he 
brought them in and put them some¬ 
where. “Queer,” he said to himself, “how 
(Concluded on Porte 1163.) 
WHEN THEY BLII.T THE NEW FARMHOUSE. 
