CHAPTER XI
THE FAILURE
The days were slipping by, and Nancy found herself entangled in a ratherconfused vacation. True, she had already reaped real benefit from thebig sale and from the subsequent days' sales in her shop, but was itreally being a vacation?
It must be admitted that Nancy had a tendency to stubbornness, but sincethat peculiarity very often marks the first stages of a strongcharacter, her mother wisely allowed her to continue to try things outfor herself. The Whatnot Shop was not proving in any way adisappointment, but it was most certainly giving Nancy work, so that shewas not free to come and go with the other girls, in spite of MissManners frequent and generous offers to "'tend store" for her.
A bright spot on her calendar not very far off, was the coming of Mrs.Brandon's vacation. Soon she would be at home, free to do all theprecious things a devoted mother plans to do in the little interval offreedom so long looked forward to and so quickly spent.
"When you are home," Nancy would continually plan, "I'm going to dothat," referring to any one of a number of things being postponed.
Today it was raining; a sudden summer shower was drenching everything asif rain had never had such a good time before, and a charity sale, inwhich all the girls were interested, was to be held that afternoon.Everyone, including Nancy, expected to attend, and she with others hadpromised to donate a cake.
But how it rained! And Nancy had planned to go into town to the fancybakers to get her cake. Hour after hour she hoped the rain would cease,until it became too late for a telephone delivery, and still Nancy couldnot go out in the downpour.
"If I could only bake it," she reflected, as she once more gazedgloomily out of the windows at the dripping world. "It's easy enough tobake a cake," she told herself, "and, of course, I could follow therecipe in mother's cook book."
Still Nancy had misgivings concerning such an experiment. A cake for asale should be good, of that she was certain, and for that very reasonshe had previously decided to buy one at the French Pastry Shop.
"Well," she sighed, "I may as well try it. It is sure to clear up justwhen the girls are due to call for me, and I simply couldn't go withouta cake."
First locking the store, and making up her mind that no call, howeverinsistent, would tempt her to leave her task, Nancy promptly set aboutbaking her cake. It was no trouble to find the cook book, Mrs. Brandonhad found a small shelf suitable for that in the open pantry. Also, therequired ingredients were all at hand, and the creaming of the butterand sugar, according to the first rule, Nancy executed with somethinglike skill, for she had strong young hands and the spoon in her graspquickly beat the butter and sugar together in a perfectly smooth paste.
Nancy promptly set about baking her cake.]
Then she put the flour in the sieve. In doing this she made a slightmistake, for no pan nor plate had been placed under the sieve andconsequently a pretty little layer of the sifted flour showered out uponher table before she could get a receptacle under the utensil.
"I had better measure over again," Nancy decided, feeling that theuncertainty of guessing at the lost flour might spoil her cake. So thistime she put in her baking powder, salt and flour, and sifted all into alittle pudding pan. Separating the eggs, yolks from whites, was notquite so easily accomplished, but even that was finally managed, and nowNancy knew it was time to light the gas oven.
Next, three-fourths of a cup of milk was added to the creamed butter andsugar, the egg yolks added to that and all well beaten. Then the flourwas carefully turned in, while beating all together Nancy felt reallyelated at the prospect in sight.
"I'm sure this will be fine," she was congratulating herself, "perhapseven better than a store cake. And I know how to make the mapleicing--I'm glad I have done that much before, at any rate," she admittedruefully.
The soft yellow mixture did indeed look promising, but now came the timeto fold in the whites of the eggs.
"Fold in," repeated Nancy, somewhat puzzled. "How shall I fold it in?"
She looked at the batter and she looked at the frothy egg whites. Tofold that in would surely mean to spoil all the nice, white, snowy moundof froth. Nancy hated to do it, but she finally spilled it into the bowlfull, and started to beat it all over again. The batter seemed ratherthin and Nancy decided to add a little more flour. Just here was whereher inexperience threatened disaster, but the trial so fascinated thelittle cook that she did a few other things not proposed by the recipe,but all of which seemed reasonable to her.
The oven was now sizzling hot, and Nancy quickly turned her mixture intotwo tins, which she neglected to grease, and slipped them into the oven.With a sense of satisfaction she turned to and really cleared up all theutensils--something very commendable indeed in Nancy Brandon. Withwatching the clock and getting Ted's lunch set out on the little porchtable, while she also managed somehow to start her own personalpreparations for the afternoon, Nancy was, as she would say, kept on thejump.
But the cake didn't burn, and she took it from the oven on the dot ofthirty minutes.
"It will have to cool, I suppose," Nancy guessed, "and while it'scooling I'll make the icing. It looks pretty good but it has got a lotof holes in it," was her rather skeptical criticism, as she inspectedthe two layers of golden pastry. But the cake, even after a thoroughcooling which consumed more time than could be spared, would not leavethe tins!
Nancy tried a knife--that broke a great rough corner off. Then she gotthe pancake turner and slipped it under as well as she could, but alas!The thing actually splashed up in a regular explosion of crumbs!
"Ruined!" groaned Nancy. "I can never fix that!"
Her disappointment was cruel. To see a perfectly good and such afragrant cake go to pieces when finished, after all the work of gettingit that far was nothing short of a tragedy.
Tears blinded Nancy Brandon.
"I might have known," she sighed, "I just couldn't have such good luckwith cooking."
The rain was almost over. Ted would soon be in, but Nancy just couldn'thelp crying. It was so hard not to succeed when she had been counting soespecially on that afternoon's fun. Perhaps she could get Ted to go totown for her after all. But upon serious consideration she decidedagainst that plan. She simply wouldn't go now under any circumstances.Her eyes were red and she wanted a good cry even more than the fun ofthe sale. In fact, she couldn't help crying and she wasn't going to try.
When an hour later the girls called, Ted told them what was strictlytrue. Nancy was in bed with a sick headache and she couldn't go.Carrying their messages of sympathy upstairs to Nancy, along with aplate full of broken cake and a glass of ice cold lemonade, Ted tried tocheer his disconsolate sister, but even then she had not discovered thatthe whole trouble was merely her neglect of greasing those cake tins.The cook book didn't direct so simple a thing as that and, of course,poor Nancy just hadn't noticed that her mother did it. She was usuallytoo concerned about the remnants of cake dough being left in the bowl,to observe how the batter was being put in the pans.
"Does it ache hard?" asked Ted, sitting beside his sister and referringto her head.
"Yes, it does, Ted, but this lemonade is splendid."
"I can make good lemonade," Ted admitted. "And your cake is swell, onlyit sticks awful. I got it out with the pie server," he told Nancysimply.
"Yes. I couldn't get it to come off the pan at all. Well," and Nancymoved to get up, "I suppose I won't feel any worse down stairs. Whatcolor dress did Ruth have on?"
To the best of his limited ability Ted described the girls' costumes andthen, determined to drive away Nancy's blues, he started in to recite indetail his great experience of that morning.
"Now Nan," he began, "you can say all you like, but Mr. Sanders doesdisappear. _I saw him!_"
"_You_ saw him disappear!"
"Yes, sure as shootin'. We were all running down the hill, trying to getto the station before that big shower, when I said to Tom, 't
here's Mr.Sanders, comin' up.' He said he saw him too, and we kept on runnin',when I was just goin' to shout hello, and true as I tell you, Nan, therewasn't any Mr. Sanders anywhere in sight!"
"Ted Brandon!"
"Yep, that's just what I'm telling you. We all saw him go, but no onesaw where to."
And presently even the lost pleasure and the spoiled cake were soonforgotten in their discussion of Ted's remarkable story.