Elsie ("Emma Louise") begins her new life on the farm near Lynch, Nebraska, with Clair ("Jimmy")

Bride's Breakfast

“Thank goodness,” thought Emma Louise as she hopped out of bed and slipped into a crisp gingham dress which had been taken from her suitcase and hung on the back of a chair the night before. “I am so glad I know how to cook, and wash dishes, and sweep the floor, at least; even though I have been teaching school for several years. There will not be so very many bride’s jokes to tell the uncles and aunts in this family.”

“I suppose Jimmy built the fire and brought in some fresh water.”

Entering the kitchen, this energetic young lady was doomed to disappointment. Very evidently Jimmy had gone to his milking without even hesitating: the stove appeared fireless indeed, to say nothing of the large assortment of unwashed pots and pans which adorned its surface. Jimmy’s culinary trials were over now, he had a housekeeper.

“Oh well,” Emma Louise said to the gray pussy cat purring at her feet. “I can build a fire, that is nothing.”

Cheerfully she set to work, shaking down ashes, stuffing in paper and cobs. Soon a good blaze was going. But for some reason it did not seem inclined to go up the pipe as it should, although the pipe damper was turned straight.

“The oven damper must be it,” said Emma Louise to the pussy cat who now was looking for a mouse underneath the sink. But a search far and wide failed to bring to light anything which looked like an oven damper. The smoke was oozing out the cracks around the lids, and through a small crevice in the pipe. Still Emma Louise could find no way to send the smoke in the proper direction. The air was thick with it, her eyes were burning.

Finally, she thought, “I had better set the teakettle over the fire so some water can be heating.” Moving the large teakettle to the front part of the stove disclosed a funny little knob beside the pipe. Emma Louise pushed the funny little knob, and presto, the smoke stopped pouring through all the cracks and crevices it could find. It went right up the chimney where it belonged.

Emma Louise drew a deep breath of satisfaction. “Now some fresh water for the coffee,” she almost sang. As she lifted the lid of the reservoir to empty therein the contents of the water-pail, a peculiar odor filled the room.

“Now what?” Emma Louise was mystified. “Such a smell. There must be something not quite right around here.”

“Oh, well,” decided the young housewife, “I shall give this kitchen a good cleaning after breakfast. I’ll bet that man he hired did not keep things very clean while Jimmy was gone.”

Out into the bright June morning Emma Louise stepped, her eyes still smarting from the smoke. The well at which she had noticed Jimmy pumping water for the cows stood a short distance from the house, down hill toward the barn. The whole farm was either up hill or down hill, they could not have had a tennis court if they had so desired.

Emma Louise soon had her bucket filled and was back in the kitchen, putting coffee and water into the coffee pot. Now that she had brought in the fresh water, she noticed the peculiar odor more than ever, it smelled almost like Epsom salts.

The fire was burning merrily now and in a few minutes Emma Louise had bacon frying in a clean skillet, bread toasting, and the table set. But still that peculiar odor lingered.

Jimmy, coming in, set his brimming pails of milk beside the separator and sniffed the air inquiringly, first this way and then that. An action, followed by a question which, as time passed, Emma Louise was to know very well; sometimes signifying something pleasant, sometimes something unpleasant. “What do I smell?”

“That is what I have been trying to find out,” answered Emma Louise. “The coffee is beginning to boil, but it ought not to smell like that.”

Jimmy sniffed the air above the coffee pot, then walked over to the sink and sniffed the air above the water pail.

“What did you do with the water that was in the pail?” he wanted to know.

“I poured it in the reservoir and got some fresh,’’ Emma Louise answered.

“And where did you get the fresh, from the well?” he further inquired. “Of course,” Emma Louise replied. “I thought people usually get water from a well.”

“Usually they do, honey, but not in this neck of the prairie, that is, water to drink or cook, they don’t. That is one of the things I had not told you yet. For those purposes we always use cistern water when we have it,” he added.

“Then what, when the cistern is empty?”

“Then we haul it from town in a barrel, and pay ten cents a barrel for it. That left yet in the pail was the last of the cistern water. Do not believe there is any more in there fit to use. I was going to town right after breakfast to get a barrel full for you.”

“But what is wrong with the well water?” asked Emma Louise.

“It is alkali, that is what makes it smell like Epsom salts. It is also hard, nothing will cook in it. The stock drink it, but I think they would do better on different water.”

Emma Louise lifted the coffee pot from the stove and poured the contents in the slop pail. “What shall we drink for breakfast?” she asked.

“Heat some of this good milk and make some cocoa,” Jimmy suggested, as the separator began to hum. “I usually have that for breakfast.”

Sipping her cocoa a few minutes later, Emma Louise reflected, “How important are fire and water, and how nearly this came to being a bride’s breakfast after all.”

“What’s that?” asked Jimmy. “Say, you look sweet with that black smudge on your cheek. I shall have to kiss it as soon as I finish this good breakfast.”