IVY OF THE NEGATIVES

BY MARGARET LYNN

MALDY was away for the afternoon. That was a very rare thing, for Maldy clung to the place as if it were a citadel left to her guarding. She held all visiting in contempt-partly because of her own long experience with visitors and as for her scanty shopping, she summarily relegated that to my mother, her only requirements in garments being that they should wear well and should look just like her last ones. But at one point my mother demurred. She would not buy Maldy's shoes-so she said after a few experimentsand have her hobbling around in toe-pinching or heel-rubbing footleather. So twice a year, after Maldy's needs had for many days been pointed out to her, she, with many postponements and great final reluctance, went to town with my mother. This was one of those occasions.

She had looked back many times before she was out of sight, and we, out of sheer kindliness to her, had maintained a virtuous state of conspicuous idleness on the front porch as long as she could see us. It would be a comforting vision for her to carry with her to the unacceptable experiences of the afternoon.

With Maldy out of sight and a change of atmosphere, we immediately relaxed. Meditation fell upon us. We were not really casting about for anything lawless to do; but still so rare an occasion as this deserved some unwonted employment. It would be unappreciative and tame not to use it appropriately. Uneasiness sat even on Henry, while we all tacitly and inactively awaited a worthy inspiration.

Our meditation was interrupted by the appearance of Ivy Hixon, the daughter of one of the renters, coming on one of her borrowing errands. She now carried a black-cracked teacup in her hand.

"Mom wanted to know would your ma borrow her some saleratus," she delivered herself.

Questioning revealed that she wanted some baking soda. I arose with as good an imitation of my mother's air as I could manage, and led the way into the house. Mary followed us, and finally John.

Henry, who found no delight in the freckled Ivy, and had in fact compared her appearance to that of a grass-burr, sent an indifferent glance after us and then took himself off to the stables. For Henry the company of horses never staled.

In the big storeroom of the kitchen-a mere pantry could not hold stores for a household of our numbers-we found the soda, and with as many manners as I could take on I gave Ivy a liberal helping. Ivy lingered to look around. "You've got lots of things to eat," she said.

That had never seemed to me a cause for pride, but I tried to look affluent. However, I thought it better to edge Ivy back into the kitchen. My mother never talked to the renter women about the things we had. But even in the kitchen Ivy found much to comment on and linger over. I was uneasy at first; my mother was full of kindly attentions to the renter families, but the children never came to the house much. However, that prohibition appeared to belong to Maldy's administration, and to allow Ivy to remain for a while seemed to be a privilege of the day. Soon we were all talking freely and enjoying Ivy's admiration of the number and size of our kitchen utensils. She applauded the kitchen stove especially. Maldy's stove was no doubt a thing to admire, although at that time, not having the housekeeping point of view, we did not realize its praiseworthiness.

A fire had been left, in Maldy's hasty after-dinner departure. Even its heat, as we assisted Ivy to admire it, seemed of a peculiarly efficient sort. Assuming technical knowledge, we displayed dampers and drafts and oven depths. Ivy looked appreciatively into the still

warm oven.

"Mom made a cake onst," she said,

folks come."

It was not for us to speak of cakes.

"Can you cook?" she asked me.

"when Uncle Jake's

"Some," I answered conservatively. I had once mixed up cornbread under Maldy's impatient direction.

"I can fry side-meat and potatoes and make saleratus biscuits." We had learned that renters lived chiefly on hot biscuit; when I add that they called bread "light-bread " always, I have sufficiently indicated their social standing in our eyes.

"We could make a cake right now," said Ivy. She spoke as one

suggesting an enterprise, but a merely natural one to undertake. I was silent, as of course Mary was also.

Said John in a moment, "Let's make a cake." John had no culinary self-respect to preserve. Anyway, he was thinking less of

the adventure than of the desirable result.

"You put eggs in it, and milk and lots of sugar and flour and butter if you got it and lard if you ain't," said Ivy glibly. "I bet you folks got all them things."

"Oh, yes," I answered hastily.

"We've got everything."

That seemed to be acquiescence, and we stood somehow committed to the undertaking. Anyhow, adventure, the more lawless the better, had been calling to us.

However, Ivy Hixon was not going to dictate to us in our own kitchen. Having made the suggestion, her officiousness expanded and threatened to take control of us all. I prepared to assert myself. "You beat the eggs first," said Ivy; "Mom took three."

While I considered, Mary, the methodical, climbed to a shelf and brought down a cook-book. The possession of a cook-book was merely a concession to convention on Maldy's part, for she was never seen to use it and had been heard to speak contemptuously of it. Mary's little forefinger traveled down the index column to cakes.

"There's a good many," she said. "What kind do we want? Here's Brown Stone Front and Nancy Hanks and Five Egg and Good White Cake and Jelly Cake and Chocolate Layer and Marble and Fairy Lily"

"Let's have that," I said.

Mary turned to it. "Whites of seven eggs, cup and a half of sugar," she began.

"What do you do with the yolks?" I interrupted. I had supposed that an egg was a unit in cooking.

Mary laboriously followed through the list of items and figures. "It don't say," she said.

"Mom put 'em in," said Ivy. "Mom's cake was yallow. It wasn't no lily cake," she finished contemptuously. With the advent of the cook-book authority seemed likely to slip from her. "Mom put three whole eggs in her'n."

"Let's make a big cake," said John.

"Read the five-egg one," I dictated.

"Five eggs beaten separately" began Mary.

"That's awful funny," said Ivy. We all looked dubious, in fact.

Mary finished out the proportions of the cake, conventional enough I suppose. The final statement that the recipe would make a very large cake was decisive for every one.

"All right," I said briskly. I really was not, for my part, eager for the result, but the situation began to please me. "John, you fix up the fire, and don't take Maldy's cobs. Mary, we've got to wash our hands first." That was sheer virtue; a look at Ivy's had suggested it. Ivy joined us in common ablution, and, I think, saw the complexion of her hands for the first time in many a day.

"We must clean our finger-nails," added Mary gently, to my surprise. Ivy plainly thought that unnecessary, but followed suit, matching the novel enterprise from her own experience, however, with, "Mom digs out the baby's nails sometimes."

But, that concession to elegance over, Ivy quickly resumed her place again. I turned from the towel to find her setting out a flat crock for a mixing bowl, a row of five teacups, and a fork.

"What are those for?" I asked.

"To beat the eggs in. The book says so.

I had never seen a process like that, and was doubtful; but still many an operation went on in the kitchen on which I did not trouble to cast my eye. I was not in a position to contradict, but I tried at least to awe Ivy by reaching down an egg-beater instead of the fork. Ivy looked at it a moment, tested its movement and, unimpressed, accepted it as a matter of course. She hung over the cook-book, business in her mien, energy radiating from her elbows. Nature had dealt but meagerly with Ivy. Her hair was sandy-sandy to the touch, I fancied-her face was sandy, her hands looked sandy. Her dress, to my embarrassment, was an old one of my own; I tried to act unconscious of the fact. It hung loosely from her round shoulders and-although she was nearly as old as I-was far too long for her; but as she was barefooted, that was a good thing. Her scratched feet looked sandy, too. Her hair was tied with a white string, which was braided in for two or three inches from the end. I had suggested that means of security to Ellen when she braided my hair, but she did not accept the suggestion, although it would doubtless have saved me many a reproof. Whether because of this device or not, Ivy's scrawny little braid turned sharply outward from

her meager shoulders and, with her quick, jerky movements, bobbed about like a question mark incessantly questioning. Before we got through with our enterprise that curled-up arc of hair seemed to me to be making the cake, it was so active, so ubiquitous.

Ivy turned briskly from the cook-book and disappeared into the store-room. She was back almost instantly.

Say, there ain't but six eggs, and if we'd take them they'd know for sure. You go out and get some more. I bet the's a plenty." Dignity compelled me to pass the order on to John. Assuming initiative, I proceeded to get out the other ingredients, but always with Ivy at my elbow, making additional suggestions. "When you're getting get a plenty. That's what Aunt Em says. But Mom says when you ain't got any money-Say, ain't you folks got lots of sugar! Say, you could have cake every day."

Her eyes saw every article in the store-room, and her tongue commented without trammel. Between times she issued orders with freedom and decision. I was always just going to, but Ivy steadily forestalled me. It seemed as if, whenever I turned to do a thing, Ivy's arc of braid was always bobbing just ahead of me. Information which I imparted to her became her own as completely as if it had never been mine. Within a few minutes she knew all the household equipment as well as Mary and I put together. It need not be supposed that I acquiesced readily in this system of precedence, but when there is no crevice in the front of authority where one can interpose opposition, and when one is hampered by hospitality besides, where is one going to begin to assert her independence?

The mixing spoon was hardly ever out of Ivy's hands. She stirred and beat and sifted and stirred, in a housewifely ecstasy of creation. The words "a plenty " rolled lusciously on her tongue when she caught sight of our household stores. Only steady selfcontrol kept her from altering the proportion of ingredients when abundance of butter or sugar came into view. It seemed a pity not to use more when there was " a plenty." Her imagination reached forward, and she hinted at something else to be done when the cake was off our hands. But this time even John did not rise to the suggestion.

I should not have supposed that one person could find sufficient orders for three. I found myself obeying in a sort of bewilderment. Mary was kept busy washing dishes, because, as Ivy said, the elders