Besides, cooking was easy enough, and any
one could do it who had to. It was only necessary to put things into a
pot and let them boil, or into an oven to bake. Of course they must be
watched and taken from the stove when done, but that was about all
there was to cooking. There was a sack of corn-meal in the "shanty,"
and a jug of maple syrup. A dish of hot mush would be the very thing.
Then there was coffee already ground; of course he would have a cup of
coffee. So the boy made a roaring fire, found the coffee-pot, set it
on the stove, and filled a large saucepan with corn-meal.
"There may be a little too much in there," he thought; "but I can save
what I can't eat now for lunch, and then fry it, as mother does."
Having got thus far in his preparations, he took a bucket and went
outside for some water from the river. Here he remained for a few
minutes to gaze at a distant up-bound steamboat, and wondered why he
had not noticed her when she passed the raft. Although the river
seemed somewhat narrower than he thought it should be, he had no idea
but that he was still in its main channel, and that the land on his
left was the Wisconsin shore.
Still wondering how he could have missed seeing, or at least hearing,
the steamboat, the boy reentered the "shanty." Thinking of steamboats
rather than of cooking, he began to pour water into the saucepan of
meal, which at once began to run over.
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