I would far rather he
should say, "Katy, you are behaving like a child and I wish you would
stop talking."
"Martha," I said, "you will persist that the butter is good, because
you ordered it. If you will only own that, I won't say another word."
"I can't say it," she returned. "Mrs. Jones' butter is invariably
good. I never heard it found fault with before. The trouble is you
are so hard to please."
"No, I am not. And you can't convince me that if the buttermilk is
not perfectly worked out, the butter could be fit to eat."
This speech I felt to be a masterpiece. It was time to let her know
how learned I was on the subject of butter, though I wasn't brought
up to make it or see it made.
But here Ernest put in a little oil.
"I think you are both right," he said. "Mrs. Jones makes good butter,
but just this once she failed. I dare say it won't happen again, and
mean while this can be used for making seed-cakes, and we can get a
new supply."
This was his masterpiece. A whole firkin of butter made up into
seed-cakes!
Martha turned to encounter him on that head, and I slipped off to my
room to look, with a miserable sense of disappointment, at my folly
and weakness in making so much ado about nothing. I find it hard to
believe that it can do me good to have people live with me who like
rancid butter, and who disagree with me in everything else.
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