The merchants in the town would let us have what food
we wanted on credit. In fact, in those earlier years I was
constantly embarrassed because people seemed to have more faith
in me than I had in myself. It was pretty hard to cook, however,
with stoves, and awkward to eat without dishes. At first the
cooking was done out-of-doors, in the old-fashioned, primitive
style, in pots and skillets placed over a fire. Some of the
carpenters' benches that had been used in the construction of the
building were utilized for tables. As for dishes, there were too
few to make it worth while to spend time in describing them.
No one connected with the boarding department seemed to have any
idea that meals must be served at certain fixed and regular
hours, and this was a source of great worry. Everything was so
out of joint and so inconvenient that I feel safe in saying that
for the first two weeks something was wrong at every meal. Either
the meat was not done or had been burnt, or the salt had been
left out of the bread, or the tea had been forgotten.
Early one morning I was standing near the dining-room door
listening to the complaints of the students. The complaints that
morning were especially emphatic and numerous, because the whole
breakfast had been a failure.
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