The Lesson

To Say a Few Things About the Kitchen

Where the table was, in relation to the pantry, one could not see beneath it, but a child might.

What a child would see is this: a trap door!

How that had come to be there no one could say, but both Ezra and Loring had dearly loved it. It led to the basement of the house, which, behind, projected out of a hill, and so was an alternate first floor on one side. That room will not be discussed at this time, but it is there the trapdoor led. If Stan saw it, he said nothing.

And indeed, it is quite likely that he did not see it, for there was little light in the room. That is the first thing Loring set about fixing, for as she would have said, if asked, another of Ezra’s rules was that one ought not be in a dark kitchen, as it tempts fate.

By this he would never mean that an accident of one sort or another might happen there.

So, the kitchen table at one end, and windows all along, looking out. A stove in a corner, and shelves hanging here and there between windows. Pots, pans, herbs, etc., also hanging. Chairs of a delicate character, long-limbed, thin-armed chairs which drew many compliments always, doubly. That is to say, one complimented first their appearance, and then one sat, and complimented again, saying the appearance, however fine, was no match for the actual experience of sitting.

Sadly, such a thing would be lost on Stan, being that he lacked the appropriate proportion to truly understand the chairs. He clambered up into one as Loring opened the windows and flung out the shutters.

She fetched a cushion from a closet, and gave it him. He, in putting the cushion down, stood on the chair, and had a look around.

Out the window (for now he could see well through the window) there was a fine sight.