As I might have expected, he didn’t. Beastly man.
When we entered our bungalow, after giving Spike the greeting he deserved, the men settled into the living room for a chat while we women took off our hats and gloves, headed to the kitchen, donned aprons, and assisted Vi with preparing the meal. The main thing I had learned from the fateful visit Sam, Mr. Prophet and I had made to Gay’s Lion Farm in Westlake Park earlier in the year was that women do all the work in the world, no matter what species they belong to. And don’t tell me men are out all day laboring to earn a living, either. In my family, we three women went out and earned the living. Then we came home and did all the housework.
Mind you, the men in our family weren’t lazy or at fault for not working. My father had been a chauffeur and an automobile mechanic for a bunch of rich Pasadenans before he’d had a severe heart attack.
My late husband, Billy Majesty, had been set to become a productive member of society, too, and had a job lined up for himself as a mechanic at the Hull Motor Works in Pasadena. He made the mistake of enlisting in the army after Kaiser Wilhelm and his bevy of German toads tried to take over the world, thereby getting himself shot and gassed and wheelchair-bound until his early death.
Ah, well. What’s the old saying? “A man’s work ends when the day is done, but a woman’s work is never done”? It’s the truth.
Spike, however—a man, if a canine one—joined the women in the kitchen. I doubt he did so out of a feeling of obligation and a desire to assist us. He just hoped one or more of us would drop something. He was about the fastest dog in the West, and I’d never yet been able to pick up something I’d dropped before Spike nabbed it.
I’d already set a gorgeous salad of mixed greens on the dinner table and made sure each place setting had a little extra plate upon which a person could put his or her roll and butter or a spoonful or two of salad. In our household, nobody followed strict rules of etiquette. When I’d asked Vi what kind of salad dressing she’d prepared, she’d only shrugged and said, “Just a regular old vinaigrette. Nothing fancy.”
Nothing fancy, my foot. If anyone told me he or she would kill me if I didn’t whip up a vinaigrette, I’d be a dead Daisy. I couldn’t even tell you what a vinaigrette contained. Well, except for vinegar, I guess.
As Ma and I settled superbly roasted potatoes around the succulent lamb leg on the big white serving platter, Vi said, “Will you please cut a hunk of butter and put it on the asparagus, Daisy?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I loved asparagus. I’d tried to grow it in our kitchen garden, but asparagus evidently didn’t like growing in Pasadena, so my effort had come to naught. I didn’t feel as bad about not being able to grow asparagus as I was about my many failures as a cook.
“And then take the rolls out of the oven and put them in the basket. Peggy’s already laid a napkin in the basket, haven’t you, Peggy?”
“I have,” Ma confirmed.
“Sure will.” After I buttered the asparagus, I opened the oven door to the delicious aromatic combination of freshly baked rolls and superbly roasted leg of lamb. “Are these Parker House rolls?” I asked, hoping I’d managed to get one teensy bit of culinary vocabulary correct.
“They are indeed, sweetie.”
Aha! For some reason, I felt better about life.
“This dinner smells heavenly, Vi.”
“It certainly does,” agreed my mother.
“Please get me the gravy boat, Daisy,” Vi said. “The gravy’s all ready.”
“Oh, good.” Leg of lamb, roasted potatoes and gravy. And asparagus! What could be better? Not a whole lot, by crikey.
“And then please call the men in for dinner,” added Ma, as she took off her apron and hung it on its hook on the service porch.
“Will do.”
Naturally, the men popped up from their seats and raced to the dining room as soon as I’d carried the good news about dinner being ready. Well, because of his present state of health, Mr. Prophet didn’t precisely run. Then there was his grudge against lamb, which was even more irrational than my grudge against 1925.
Pa said a short grace as soon as we’d taken our accustomed places at the dinner table. Vi and Pa took up the two end places. Sam and I sat on one side, and Ma and Mr. Prophet sat on the other. Mr. Prophet sat next to Vi because, although he hated it, someone had to cut his meat for him because of left his arm being in a sling.
Nobody spoke as plates were handed out and vegetable bowls, the gravy boat, dinner rolls and butter made the rounds. Our house smelled so good!
I kept an eye on Mr. Prophet. To give him credit, he didn’t wrinkle his when Vi set his plate before him. He did look down at it for a couple of seconds before picking up a roll and attempting to break it open.
“Here. Let me help you with your roll,” said Vi, doing the same. She buttered it for him, too.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said he, giving her a tight grin.
I had long been under the impression Mr. Lou Prophet, legendary hero (or perhaps anti-hero) of the Old West, didn’t appreciate people having to do things for him. For as many times as he’d been shot or otherwise injured in and out of the line of duty, you’d have thought he’d be used to it by this time, but I reckon he still valued his independence—what there was left of it.
He nibbled on his roll and butter, then stabbed a piece of asparagus and chewed. Tilting his head slightly, his expression eased a bit, giving me the impression asparagus pleased him. This, of course, made me wonder. I mean, the fellow had lived a really rugged life for years and years.
“Have you eaten asparagus before, Mr. Prophet?” I asked out of curiosity.
“None as good as this,” said he. “It grows along some of the riverbanks in my old stompin’ grounds, so we’d eat it sometimes, but it didn’t taste near as good as this does.” He smiled at Vi. “You’re the best cook I ever met, Mrs. Gumm.”
My aunt blushed. Her blush didn’t surprise me. If you’ve read any of those old dime novels written about him, you’d have learned all about Mr. Prophet’s way with the ladies—or, perhaps, women who weren’t ladies—as well as his skill with firearms.
When I was laid up after a stupid car rammed me into a stupid tree on New Year’s Day, I read lots of yellow-back novels purporting to be about Mr. Prophet. A fellow named Heywood Wilden Scott wrote several books fitting into this particular brand of literature—if it can be called literature—mainly because he and Mr. Prophet had ended up at the Odd Fellows Home of Christian Charity in Pasadena together. Don’t know if or how Mr. Scott ever managed to free himself from the dismal place, but Sam and I had sprung Mr. Prophet at the first of the year.
According to those books, Mr. Prophet had once possessed a hefty appetite for violence, women and liquor. And the poor fellow had ended up in staid and proper Pasadena, California, in the midst of Prohibition! With a peg leg and an arm in a sling! The notion nearly gave me the giggles, but I suppressed them, knowing my mother would disapprove.
Anyhow, I wanted to monitor Mr. Prophet’s attack on his Easter dinner, so I munched happily on salad, asparagus, lamb and roasted potatoes and watched him across the table. A few minutes after I’d begun my discreet surveillance, I felt a knee-nudge from Sam and glanced at him. He dropped his napkin, and both of us bent to retrieve it.
“Quit staring at Lou,” he whispered as we clunked heads.
“I’m not staring!” I whispered back.
“You are, too.” He pinched his napkin, sat up, and spread it across his lap once more, then smiled at everyone. “Napkin slipped,” he announced, as if to account for his napkin’s sudden disappearance.
I sat up, too. “This is so good, Aunt Vi,” I said, deliberately not looking at Mr. Prophet.
“It’s wonderful,” agreed my mother.
Pa had his mouth full, so he couldn’t agree aloud, although he nodded his head with vigor.
“Delicious,” said Sam. It was his usual comment when he took dinner with us, which was pretty much all the time now that we were engaged to be married and he lived across the street.
The next time I glanced across the table, I saw Mr. Prophet take in a deep breath and stab a piece of lamb with his fork. I noticed he covered it with gravy first. Then, as if he feared he’d back out if he delayed, he stuffed the meat into his mouth and chewed, screwing up his wrinkled eyelids as if eating that piece of meat was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his already eventful life. After his first chew, his eyes opened, and I saw the dawn of delight in them. Well…All right, so I didn’t see anything expression-wise, but his eyes unwrinkled. Then he began smiling as he chewed.
Right after his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, he said, “By damn-er-dang, this lamb is great stuff. Tastes kind of like the goat folks’d cook down Mexico way when I’d pay a visit across the border.”
Hallelujah!
“So glad you like it,” said Vi, who had no idea Mr. Prophet had voiced such violent objections to people eating sheep only a few hours prior to dinner.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten goat,” said Vi in a musing sort of way. I hoped she wasn’t aiming to get Mr. Larkin—he’s the butcher at Jorgensen’s, the market where rich people’s servants shopped for their employers—to find and butcher a goat for her. Although I don’t know why I hoped such a thing. Vi could make darned near anything taste good.
“I knew you’d like it,” I told Mr. P.
He crinkled an eye at me. I think it was meant to be a wink, although I’m not positive. “Sure, you did, Miss Daisy.”
I felt Sam’s chuckle, because his shoulders bumped mine a couple of times. “Vi,” I said sententiously, “can make anything taste good.”
“I’m sure she can,” said Mr. Prophet, forking up another bite of lamb.
So we ate and chatted and had a fine old time until we were all too full to take another bite of anything, including dessert. So I suggested we retire to the living room, and I’d play the piano until we were ready to eat cake. Coconut cake, my personal favorite. With vanilla ice cream.
“Sounds good to me,” said Pa. “I’ll help you with the dishes.”
“You don’t need to do that, Joe,” said my mother just as I was about to thank my father for the offer. After all, the men hadn’t done a darned thing to get dinner on the table.
“Don’t be silly, Peggy,” said Pa. “You ladies have done all the work so far.”
“Good point,” said Sam, rising from his chair. “Why don’t you ladies and you, Lou, go to the living room. Joe and I can clean up these dishes.”
I pressed the back of my hand to my forehead just to make sure I wasn’t feverish. Sam caught me doing it, and gave me a malevolent grin.
“Wish I could help,” said Mr. Prophet. Mendaciously, I have no doubt. “But I can’t do much with this arm in a sling.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said. “But I’ll help gather up the dishes for you fellows.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” said Pa.
And by golly, for once in the history of the world, the men washed and put away the dinner dishes. I sneaked a peek later on that evening to make sure they’d done so properly, and they had.
We passed the rest of Easter Sunday, 1925, singing and eating cake. At about eight o’clock, when we were all about to fade away from over-stuffation and song-hoarsened voices, Vi even made lamb sandwiches.
“Just little ones,” she said. “To keep your tummies full until morning.”
I wasn’t about to argue with the greatest cook in all of California. I did, however, almost envy Sam and Mr. Prophet’s short walk across the street to Sam’s bungalow—Mr. Prophet lived in a small guest house behind the main house—only because they were getting about two minutes’ worth of exercise. All I did was flop onto my bed and groan when I hit the sack with my beloved dachshund around nine-thirty that night.
Before I drifted off into overfed slumber that night, I forgave 1925 for having been so rotten to me.
Silly me.