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Authors: Rohan O’Grady
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spirited gourmet’s conversation with the goat-lady. Food was the one and only thing his uncle had taught him to appreciate.
Later in the morning he and Christie went back to the Brookses for a second breakfast of tea and toast. That fare might have been enough for the frail Mr and Mrs Brooks, but Barnaby looked upon it as a between-meal snack.
Mrs Brooks would have been alarmed at both the quantity and choice of foods Mrs Nielsen served, for Dickie had had a delicate stomach, but the goat-lady’s meals were neverleft unfinished by Barnaby and now even Christie usually cleaned her plate.
They lived largely off the products of the sea and the Island. The children were particularly fond of oysters, and with watering mouths they watched the goat-lady dip the big, pearl-gray blobs, first in beaten egg, then in crushed cracker crumbs. Dropped into deep fat in the black frying pan, the oysters came out golden and plump. Sometimes the goat-lady baked them on fat slices of beefsteak tomatoes, seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper and grated yellow cheese. While Barnaby and Christie hovered anxiously by the stove, the oysters were lifted from the oven with sizzling ebony edges.
They had oysters simmered in milk, topped with paprika and chives, and they had them in omelettes. They loved clams steamed in an inch of water, and scooping out the tiny insides with toothpicks, they dipped them in butter. The goat-lady’s clam chowder was as thick as a stew, solid with bacon, new potatoes, sliced onions and halved tomatoes.
Oysters, clams, crabs or salmon, whatever the goat-lady cooked was good.
Each night the goat-lady washed Christie’s blouse and cotton skirt and hung them on a line over the stove to dry. Each night she set Christie’s hair in rag curls, and each morning as the children ate breakfast the goat-lady heated a flat iron on the stove and ironed Christie’s clothing.
While Barnaby stacked the dishes and got water from the well, the goat-lady sat on the sofa with Christie at her feet, and undoing the rags she brushed Christie’s hair until it stood out like a halo of fine, wheat-coloured silk.
With a satisfied expression she watched them going off. Already Christie was filling out, and the salt breezes hadwhipped a tinge of rose to her sallow cheeks. Why, the child looked almost healthy.
And the children, for the first time in their lives, were learning to play.
Each day brought new surprises and delights, and they soon knew the paths, fields and beaches of the Island. On the strange, fire-scarred mountainside they found ragged foxgloves rising bravely, and beneath cool ferns starpetaled trilliums winked at them. When they were thirsty they stum bled on secret icy springs. When they were hungry they found abandoned orchards where weary old trees were heavy with summer fruit, and along the lanes patches of wild blackberries, salmonberries and huckleberries beckoned a passing child.
They pointed to the sinister floating eagles who shrilled from their airy heights at the two dots who were Barnaby and Christie.
‘Listen!’ said Christie, squinting against the sun, ‘you’d sort of expect them to roar instead of making that silly little squeak.’
‘Come on!’ cried Barnaby. Life was too short for dawdling.
They had also, of course, their appointed judicial sentences to serve. They usually did the graveyard work before their second breakfast, while the bread delivery route was saved for the afternoon, when the bread was cool.
Surrounded by a drooping fence, the forsaken little graveyard was so overgrown with weeds that the toppling crosses and monuments were hardly visible.
The aged of the Island could no longer tend the verdant, lively dead, and the children, leaping about the garter-snake-riddenpaths, found pitiful glass jars filled with longfaded flowers. On the graves of the poorer the white crosses, made of wood, had rotted at the bases and tilted wearily in the heat and life of the rich soil.
With
Later in the morning he and Christie went back to the Brookses for a second breakfast of tea and toast. That fare might have been enough for the frail Mr and Mrs Brooks, but Barnaby looked upon it as a between-meal snack.
Mrs Brooks would have been alarmed at both the quantity and choice of foods Mrs Nielsen served, for Dickie had had a delicate stomach, but the goat-lady’s meals were neverleft unfinished by Barnaby and now even Christie usually cleaned her plate.
They lived largely off the products of the sea and the Island. The children were particularly fond of oysters, and with watering mouths they watched the goat-lady dip the big, pearl-gray blobs, first in beaten egg, then in crushed cracker crumbs. Dropped into deep fat in the black frying pan, the oysters came out golden and plump. Sometimes the goat-lady baked them on fat slices of beefsteak tomatoes, seasoned with vinegar, salt, pepper and grated yellow cheese. While Barnaby and Christie hovered anxiously by the stove, the oysters were lifted from the oven with sizzling ebony edges.
They had oysters simmered in milk, topped with paprika and chives, and they had them in omelettes. They loved clams steamed in an inch of water, and scooping out the tiny insides with toothpicks, they dipped them in butter. The goat-lady’s clam chowder was as thick as a stew, solid with bacon, new potatoes, sliced onions and halved tomatoes.
Oysters, clams, crabs or salmon, whatever the goat-lady cooked was good.
Each night the goat-lady washed Christie’s blouse and cotton skirt and hung them on a line over the stove to dry. Each night she set Christie’s hair in rag curls, and each morning as the children ate breakfast the goat-lady heated a flat iron on the stove and ironed Christie’s clothing.
While Barnaby stacked the dishes and got water from the well, the goat-lady sat on the sofa with Christie at her feet, and undoing the rags she brushed Christie’s hair until it stood out like a halo of fine, wheat-coloured silk.
With a satisfied expression she watched them going off. Already Christie was filling out, and the salt breezes hadwhipped a tinge of rose to her sallow cheeks. Why, the child looked almost healthy.
And the children, for the first time in their lives, were learning to play.
Each day brought new surprises and delights, and they soon knew the paths, fields and beaches of the Island. On the strange, fire-scarred mountainside they found ragged foxgloves rising bravely, and beneath cool ferns starpetaled trilliums winked at them. When they were thirsty they stum bled on secret icy springs. When they were hungry they found abandoned orchards where weary old trees were heavy with summer fruit, and along the lanes patches of wild blackberries, salmonberries and huckleberries beckoned a passing child.
They pointed to the sinister floating eagles who shrilled from their airy heights at the two dots who were Barnaby and Christie.
‘Listen!’ said Christie, squinting against the sun, ‘you’d sort of expect them to roar instead of making that silly little squeak.’
‘Come on!’ cried Barnaby. Life was too short for dawdling.
They had also, of course, their appointed judicial sentences to serve. They usually did the graveyard work before their second breakfast, while the bread delivery route was saved for the afternoon, when the bread was cool.
Surrounded by a drooping fence, the forsaken little graveyard was so overgrown with weeds that the toppling crosses and monuments were hardly visible.
The aged of the Island could no longer tend the verdant, lively dead, and the children, leaping about the garter-snake-riddenpaths, found pitiful glass jars filled with longfaded flowers. On the graves of the poorer the white crosses, made of wood, had rotted at the bases and tilted wearily in the heat and life of the rich soil.
With
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