It's beat 'bout enough."
"You ain't put in a mite of nutmeg, grandma."
The grandmother turned around to Ann Mary. "Don't you be quite so
anxious," said she, with sarcastic emphasis. "I allers put the nutmeg in
cup-cake the very last thing. I ruther guess I shouldn't have put this
cake into the oven without nutmeg!"
The old woman beat fiercely on the cake. She used her hand instead of a
spoon, and she held the yellow mixing-bowl poised on her hip under her
arm. She was stout and rosy-faced. She had crinkly white hair, and she
always wore a string of gold beads around her creasy neck. She never
took off the gold beads except to put them under her pillow at night,
she was so afraid of their being stolen. Old Mrs. Little had always been
nervous about thieves, although none had ever troubled her.
"You may go into the pantry, an' bring out the nutmeg now, Ann Mary,"
said she presently, with dignity.
Ann Mary soberly slipped down from her chair and went. She realized that
she had made a mistake. It was quite an understood thing for Ann Mary to
have an eye upon her grandmother while she was cooking, to be sure that
she put in everything that she should, and nothing that she should not,
for the old woman was absent-minded. But it had to be managed with great
delicacy, and the corrections had to be quite irrefutable, or Ann Mary
was reprimanded for her pains.
When Ann Mary had deposited the nutmeg-box and the grater at her
grandmother's elbow, she took up her station again.
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