Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1876 — Crying Down One’s Victuals. [ARTICLE]

Crying Down One’s Victuals.

Wk suppose you have all visited at some place where the lady of the house was In the habit, at eveiy meal, of crying down her victuals f ; She never wants company unless she knows they are coming, because as everyIxxly knows she wants a day or two in which to prepare for them. She does not suppose anybody thinks this is the reason she wants to know; she thinks that they think it is because she shall be away from home. And the mistaken soul after fretting, and sweating, and stewing, over the cook-ing-stove a day or two, and ransacking her brains and her larder to provide somethingnew under the sun in the eatable line, is ready when her guests come and seat themselves at her groaning tea-table —groaning beneath the weight of good things—she is ready to cry down her victuals, and wish In a melancholy tone of voice, and with a lugubrious expression of countenance, that she had something fit to eat!

She had such bad luck with her cooker)'. The mixing milk was too sour, and the yeast wasn’t good, and the grocery man must have cheated her when her the eggs for newly-laid. She’ll warrant anything they have been laid a month, for she never knew her recipe for sponge cake to fail, if the eggs were only good. Of course her guests hasten to assure her that there never could be any sponge cake any better than hers; and she smiles sadly, and tells them they ought to eat the sponge cake she can make, when the eggs are fresh. She is sorry the cream pie is burned—but her stove is getting so thin at the back of the oven that no dependence can be put in it. She must have a new stove. If there is anything that aggravates her beyond measure, it is to have pie burned. And a cream pie above all others! It is so much work and expense to make cream pies. Nobody has noticed that the pie was burned, and every Dody hastens to tell her so, and to add that they thought it was perfectly splendid. Then the poor woman begins on the doughnuts. She used to be a good hand at making doughnuts, she says; but somehow or other she seems to have lost her luck lately. Or else it is in the j'east. She can’t tell which. Something is at fault. It is so provoking to have bad luck with doughnuts. It is such a hot uncomfortable job to fry doughnuts in warm weather. She would as fief take a licking any time. And it scents the house up so, too. Smells like a fat-boiling establishment for a week. And then all the guests feel mean and uncomfortable, somehow; as if they were to blame about something, and as if the sin of making their hostess’ house smell like a fat-boiling establishment rested on their individual shoulders. Now, this woman who cries down her victuals knows that everything on her table is just as good as it can be made, and she has formed this habit of decrying it because she likes to have her cookery praised. Praise is sweet to us all, and almost every woman—perhaps every woman—likes to hear her victuals well spoken of. But the “ proof of the pudding lies in the eating,” and when guests “ feed” well, then the lady of the house may be sure that her cooking is perfect. And we don’t want to be to tea very offc en at the house where the mistress tells us on sitting down at the table—“that sjic does wish she had something fit to eat,” and adds when we rise therefrom Well, you didn’t make much of a supper, did you? Well, I don’t blame you! I ’sposc you didn’tlike my victuals.”— KateThom, inN. Y. Weekly.