In The Morning Add Enough Flour
To Make It In Into A Thick Dough, And Knead It On A Bread-Board
For Ten Minutes.
Put it back into pan for two hours and let it
rise again.
Grease your baking-tins, knead your dough again, and
then fill the tins half full, put them close to the stove to rise,
and when they have risen thoroughly, grease the tops of your
loaves with a little butter (preventing the crust breaking and
giving it a nice brown colour) and put them into the oven and bake
for an hour to an hour and a quarter.
As E - - had not Mrs. G - - to wash up with her, she enlisted one
of the men, and it was very funny to see him in a hat three times
too big for his head, pipe in his mouth, sleeves turned up, drying
the dishes and putting a polish on them. Talking of hats, E - -
has at last got one and a half, it literally covers even her
shoulders, and at midday she declares she is as much in shade as
under a Japanese umbrella; for trimming a rope is coiled round the
crown, the only way to make it stay on the head. Of her gloves
there is only the traditional one left; the other is among the
various articles we have left on the prairie, bumped out of the
buggy one day when she took them off to take care of them in a
shower of rain.
That driving on the prairie is loathsome, but if we want to get
about at all we must do it, as we don't like the riding horses. At
the present moment we have got one of the plough animals, which is
rideable. The poor beast was frightened one night three weeks ago,
during a fearful storm of thunder and lightning, and ran into the
barb wire, wounding itself horridly on the shoulders and neck. The
skin had to be sewn up, and it cannot wear a collar for the
present so we have it to ride if we like. It is not a slug like
the other two.
The thunder-storms here are frightful; they are also very grand to
watch, as we can see them generally for miles before they come up.
We, luckily, have about ten lightning conductors on the houses and
stables, so that we feel safe. A thunder-bolt fell pretty near the
other day, destroying about six posts and the wire of our north
fence. Thanks to the rain we have lately had, and the warm sun, we
find such quantities of mushrooms all over the prairie. They grow
to such a size! We measured two, one was 21 1/2 inches round, the
other 21, very sweet and good, and as pink underneath as possible.
The labourers have been so pleased with them that last Sunday they
began picking and cooking them in early morning, going on with
relays more or less all day, so that by the evening they couldn't
look another in the face, and it will be some time before they
touch them again. We have them for every meal.
Our diaries here are more or less public property, and as we have
been nowhere or seen anything at all exciting since we last wrote,
I am going to copy down from the journals the incidents, if any,
of the last week. You seemed to appreciate it the last time we
sent you home a copy, but you must forgive if it is somewhat of a
repetition to our numerous letters. The weather, for one thing, is
daily chronicled, as it takes up much of our thoughts, so much in
the future depending on its being propitious just at this time of
year, when the seeds are all sown and the hay almost ready to cut.
_Tuesday_. - Beautiful day, so warm and nice, without being
hot; everything growing, too, marvellously; even the seeds in the
garden, which we began to despair of, are coming up.
The men have been very low, on account of the scarcity of rain;
but we have had one or two thunder-storms lately which, have done
good, and in this climate I do not think one ought ever to give up
hopes. E - - has been painting wild flowers, which at this moment
are in great profusion and variety all over the prairie, most of
the day, varying her work by painting the doors of the room, which
were such an ugly colour, a pale yellow green, that they have
offended our artistic eyes ever since we have been here. I am said
to have wasted my whole morning watching my two-days-old chickens,
supposed to be the acme of intelligence and precocity. The
afternoon was spent in shingling the hen-house. It was only roofed
over with tar-paper laid on to the rafters, which answers well if
the wind doesn't blow the paper about, or that it has not any
holes; but as the hen-house is only a lean-to of the stable, the
roof of which we have been very busily painting, it has been
trodden upon a good deal in getting on and off the roof, and, in
consequence, the paper is much like a sponge, letting any rain in,
and drenching the poor sitting fowls; but with the shingles
overlapping each other on the tar-paper, the roof, will be quite
water-tight.
_Wednesday_. - Our factotum has gone into town, and we are
left in charge, E - - parlour-maid, Mr. B - - scullery-man, and I
cook. We have heaps of mushrooms at every meal, a most agreeable
change to the rice and white beans we have only hitherto had.
_Thursday_. - Hot day. A - - went into town to some meeting at
the Club. We have been dreadfully tormented with mosquitoes today,
also the big "bull-dog" fly, which, whenever the kitchen door was
left ajar, came into the house in myriads; but we find that
Keating's powder most effectually destroys them, and in a very few
seconds.
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