nuts don’t hurt either, but pecans will do in a pinch.)
We had a great assembly line going. I did the mixing
and got them in and out of the oven, Mary Pat and Cal
spooned little blobs of dough onto the foil-lined cookie
sheets, while Jake stood on a stool and used a spatula to
carefully transfer the baked cookies from the foil to the
wire cooling racks. Of course, they nibbled on the raw
dough as they worked and their sticky little fingers went
from mouth to bowl whenever they thought I wasn’t
looking.
I pretended not to notice. Didn’t bother me. If there
were any germs those three hadn’t already shared, the
heat of the oven would probably take care of them and
I knew the eggs were safe.
Once Daddy’s housekeeper Maidie heard about the
dangers of raw eggs, she kept threatening to stop baking
altogether until Daddy and her husband Cletus rebuilt
the old chicken house and started raising Rhode Island
Reds again. The flock was now big enough to keep the
whole family in eggs, and when the wind’s right, I can
hear their rooster crowing in the morning. Every once
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MARGARET MARON
in a while, another rooster answers and it’s a comfort-
ing signal that there are still some other farms in the
community that haven’t yet given way to a developer’s
checkbook.
Whenever I make cookies, I quadruple the recipe, so
it was almost noon before we finished filling two large
cake boxes to the brim. I planned to take one box to
Seth and Minnie’s the next day, I’d send some home
with Mary Pat and Jake, and I figured the rest should
last us at least a week if Dwight and Cal didn’t get into
them too heavily.
“Ummm. Something in here smells good enough to
eat,” said Dwight, who was back from helping Haywood
and Robert pull a mired tractor out of a soggy bottom.
“Why was Haywood even down there on a tractor
this time of year? It’s way too wet.”
“He wants to plant an acre of garden peas.” Dwight
had left his muddy boots and wet jacket in the garage
and was in his stocking feet, making hungry noises as
he lifted the lid on a pot of vegetable soup. I cut him
off a wedge of the hoop cheese I was using to make
grilled cheese sandwiches to go with the soup and it
disappeared in two bites.
“Garden peas? A whole acre? What’s he going to do
with that many peas?”
“Well you know how your brothers are trying to
come up with ideas for cash crops in case tobacco goes
