Built into the right side of the brick chimney was a huge beehive-shaped oven, and the smell of fresh-baked loaves made Lyddie forget the generous dinner she’d shared noontime. The trouble with eating good, she thought later, is you get too used to it. You think you ought to have it regular, not just for a treat.

Over the fire hung a kettle so large that both the babies could have bathed in it together. It was bubbling with a meat stew chock-full of carrots and onions and beans and potatoes in a thick brown broth. There were chickens turning on a spit, which seemed to be magically going round and round on its own. But as Lyddie’s eyes followed a leather strap upward, she saw, above the fireplace, the mechanism from which hung a huge metal pendulum. She wished her father could see it. He could make one perhaps from wood and then no one would have to tediously turn the spit by hand. But perhaps it was something you’d have to order from the blacksmith—in which case it was likely to be so dear that only the rich could afford one. She couldn’t remember seeing one at the Stevenses’, and they were rich enough to own their own loom.

“Move,” the cook said. The large woman was beginning to take the food from the fire. She gave Lyddie a quick glance. “Lucky you’re so plain. Guests couldn’t leave the last girl be.” She was ladling stew into a large serving basin. “Won’t have no trouble with you, will we?”

Lyddie picked up the stool and moved to a corner of the room. She knew she was no beauty, never had been, but she was a fierce worker. She’d prove that to the woman. Should she offer to help now? But the cook was too busy moving the food from the fire to the long wooden table in the center of the room to pay her any mind. Lyddie scrunched her body into itself and tucked her bare feet under the low stool, fearful of seeming in the way. Would all the guests come in here to eat? And if so, where should she hide?

As if to answer her question, the mistress pushed through the door with a boy behind her. “Hurry,” she said. She supervised while the last of the food was transferred from the iron kettles into great china basins, which the cook and the boy carried from the kitchen to some other part of the house. The mistress mumbled and grumped orders, and in between complained of the guest who made herself out to be a lady when she was nothing but a factory girl putting on fancy airs.