Nobody had ever dreamed of asking her to handle hot
things. She looked around dismally at Aunt Abigail, but the old woman
was standing with her back turned, doing something at the kitchen table.
Very gingerly the little girl took hold of the handle of the saucepan,
and very gingerly she shoved it to the back of the stove. And then she
stood still a moment to admire herself. She could do that as well as
anybody!
"Why," said Aunt Abigail, as if remembering that Betsy had asked her a
question. "Any man could strike a spark from his flint and steel that he
had for his gun. And he'd keep striking it till it happened to fly out
in the right direction, and you'd catch it in some fluff where it would
start a smoulder, and you'd blow on it till you got a little flame, and
drop tiny bits of shaved-up dry pine in it, and so, little by little,
you'd build your fire up."
"But it must have taken forEVER to do that!"
"Oh, you didn't have to do that more than once in ever so long," said
Aunt Abigail, briskly. She interrupted her story to say: "Now you put
the silver around, while I cream the potatoes. It's in that drawer--a
knife, a fork, and two spoons for each place--and the plates and cups
are up there behind the glass doors. We're going to have hot cocoa again
tonight." And as the little girl, hypnotized by the other's casual,
offhand way of issuing instructions, began to fumble with the knives and
forks she went on: "Why, you'd start your fire that way, and then you'd
never let it go out.
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