The Cook Read Online Free Page A

of the poultry for the Hill household at one of Albert’s competitors’, and probably all of the meat too.
    “. . . and now I want some bones,” Conrad said after they had settled on a considerably reduced price for the chicken breasts, “and several pounds of meat scraps—what I call meat scraps.”
    For the large package of bones and scraps, which Eggy shouldered along with the roast and chicken, Conrad paid nothing at all.
    Before Conrad had gone shopping that morning Maxfield had come into the kitchen, and it was immediately evident that his manner had greatly changed from the night before.
    He thanked Conrad for his special breakfast. He said it was very considerate of him.
    He also said that Mrs. Wigton had been terribly put out with Conrad, but that as she ate her breakfast her ire had slowly subsided. For one thing, her breakfast wasn’t cold, as it had usually been when Paul was the cook. And for another, it wasn’t just thrown on the plate in any which way. And for another, the muffins. She admitted they were delicious.
    “And I agree with her on that,” Maxfield said with a shy smile, the first he had vouchsafed Conrad. “She let me have a half of one . . .”
    Conrad looked disapproving. “I didn’t fix you a special breakfast to have you undo it by eating something not meant for you.”
    Conrad was probably the only person who had ever shown him any genuine concern, and the old butler hung his head sheepishly.
    “Now, there’s one thing,” Conrad continued; “those dogs . . .”
    He said he had been looking around near the edge of the woods for a place to plant some herbs when the dogs had suddenly appeared and set upon him. Whose responsibility were they?
    Maxfield said they were Master Harold’s dogs. They were vicious brutes, and friendly to no one but Harold. Only he could do anything with them but he really didn’t like them. They had been given to him by his godfather, Mr. Vale, and that was the only reason he kept them.
    “Who feeds them?”
    Maxfield replied that no one fed them. They hunted for their food.
    “What about the left-overs from the kitchen?”
    The butler smiled understandingly. “The cook has always thrown them whatever scraps he thought they would eat but that has never made them like the cook any better. They’re strange beasts.”
    Conrad said people simply didn’t know how to feed dogs.
    “And the daughter, Ester,” he added; “Betsy says she has cats . . .”
    Maxfield nodded. “Given to her by her godmother, Mrs. Vale.”
    When Conrad had returned from shopping he put some of the bones and scraps and other odds and ends in a large pot and let the mess boil while he started preparations for dinner.
    Just as the sun was setting he saw the dogs in the back sniffing around the refuse containers, and threw them some of the bones he had cooked. A paste-like substance had been left in the pot, and from that he had made a few dozen round balls. As the dogs worried the bones, snarling both at each other and at Conrad, who had sat down on the back steps, he rolled three or four of the balls toward them. At first they must have thought he was playing, because they ignored the balls completely. But then their noses corrected this impression, and they retrieved the balls and ate them. Then Conrad rolled a few more, and they left the bones and ran after the balls, still snarling. Conrad continued to roll the balls until they had eaten them all.
    The next afternoon the dogs reappeared about the same time, and Conrad went out again with the bones and the balls, only this time the dogs retrieved the balls as soon as he started rolling them.
    This performance was repeated on successive days until the dogs no longer snarled as they went after the balls.
    Soon it became a game, and the dogs learned to catch the balls in the air.
    Then one afternoon Conrad had Eggy throw them some of the balls, though Eggy was terrified of the dogs.
    But after a few days it became a game for