Turning The Tables

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Title:     Turning The Tables
Author: Eugenia Dunlap Potts [More Titles by Potts]

A PRACTICAL STORY

There was great commotion in the kitchen of a large seaside hotel not many miles from Long Branch. A commotion in fact, that struck dismay to the heart of the proprietor, who, upon visiting the store-room near by, was caught and detained, an invisible listener to the uproar.

"I 'clar ter gracious!" screamed the fat, colored cook, "I aint a-gwine ter stan' it no longer! Po' white trash a-layin' up in bed all mornin,' an' den it's eggs! Eggs biled, eggs scrabbled, an' homilies (omelettes) tell yer can't res' nohow! I'se mazin' tired of it all, I tell yer! I'se gwine ter quit--I is!"

"You'se gwine ter quit--you is! I speck! I'm done heerd dat talk eber day dis month," jeered cook number two. "Ef you quits you kin jest bet yer bottom dollar I aint a-gwine to stay. Got more'n I kin do now--I is."

"An' what yer reckon dis chile's goin' ter do den?" pertly chimed in the mulatto kitchen maid. "I'm got all de runnin' roun' ter do, an' yer kin jist bet I don't have no easy time. Quit as quick as yer please--all of yer--I'll go 'long wid de crowd!" and with a toss of her woolly bangs, she dumped a pan of potato peelings out at the door.

"Dry up! dry up!" broke in the head waiter, appearing on the scene in true autocrat fashion. He boasted of "right smart book learnin'," and was a recognised power in the land. "You don't have no trouble at all to what I do. It's run here, there and everywhere, all in a minute, with a dozen blockheads to look after. And it's precious few tips I get here, I promise you! I never see as stingy a lot o' people in all my born days. Say! you there, Jim! fetch that tray along! What are you gapin' at, nigger?"

"Don't you nigger me, you black dude!" retorted the darkey, and as he spoke a smart chambermaid pranced along, flirting back at another waiter, and ran plump against the boy, tray and all. Down went the dishes with a clatter which brought a bevy of waiters and maids on the scene, while the laundress rushed in, all dripping with soapsuds. This so irritated the head waiter that he seized a teacup and threw it at the unlucky tray man. Then followed a fusillade of broken crockery and promiscuous dodging of giggling maids and explosive men-servants.

The fat cook interposed a threatening, hissing tea-kettle to stop the war, and the perplexed housekeeper appeared among the belligerents as the overwhelmed proprietor beat a hasty retreat. Stealing unperceived along the corridors, an idea struck him. This state of things was simply dreadful; something must be done. He quickly decided. He despatched his little son to the rooms and all about the premises to request the guests to assemble to an affair of state in the imposing chamber known as the main parlor. His wife was an invalid, and the poor man was beside himself in his perplexity.

With wondering, smiling faces they came--a pleasing array of city boarders--ease and comfort written upon every face.

His audience assembled, the distressed gentleman proceeded to pour forth his grievances. He asked what he should do in such a dilemma. His help had been engaged from the swarms of colored persons who infest the stations and public resorts along the coast. They had given trouble ever since the hotel was opened. They complained and annoyed him first about one thing, then about another, till he was well on to the verge of lunacy.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," he pathetically continued, "if I try to soothe and satisfy, and raise wages and make promises, what guarantee have I that the same thing will not occur to-morrow, and next day, and next week? I engaged them fairly and squarely, and have held strictly to my contract. They are so spoiled and unmanageable that there is no satisfaction in their service. Even now, while I am talking they are no doubt still in an uproar. Why, it is a wholesale mutiny. Something must be done at once. I have come to you for advice. If, as I say, they could be persuaded to remain, I cannot promise you any comfort. If I discharge the whole crew, it will be a day, perhaps two days, before I can supply their places; for I shall have to go to New York for white help. Can you solve the problem?"

For a moment there was silence. Then Miss May Delano, a handsome, wealthy city girl, said, with a challenging glance all around: "I'll wait upon the table for my part, if somebody will get me something to serve!"

This was received with an outburst, and instantly all was chatter and confusion as they caught up the spirit of the thing.

"I'll fill the orders as fast as you can take them," boasted a Wall St. exquisite, who would have unbent his dignity to any degree to please the bewitching heiress.

"I'll help anywhere--wherever I'm needed," exclaimed another city belle.

"And I!" came in chorus. "We'll be chambermaids," said a party who had just donned bathing suits of blue flannel.

"All right! Get to work!" commanded the crowd. "You have on just the dress for the business."

"Well, Mrs. Ingalls," smilingly encouraged a plump matron, "I suppose we might do as good cooking here as we have done at home in times of emergency. Shall we try?"

"I'm agreeable," laughed the lady. "That is, if we can manage the range."

"Oh, leave that to me," said her husband. "I guess I've handled ranges before." Which caused more merriment, since that gentleman's business was in the hardware line.

Fresh came another bevy of rosy faces, whose owners declared that they had been to a cooking school and knew all about it.

"Nothing like practical demonstration," bantered the young men.

"Hurrah!" cried one Hamilton, the pet of the house. "Give me the girl who can don a white apron, roll up her sleeves, and plunge her pretty arms into the flour barrel! That's what I'm looking for!" and he cleverly balanced a chair on his chin, amid a clamor of repartee and good-natured defiance.

"Go in, the whole ship's crew!" fervently urged a family man. "It will be the best fun of the season."

"All right!" promptly agreed the ladies. "We are ready. Now, hurry up and get on your porter's apron in time for the next wagon of trunks. Pray, call us when you are about to shoulder one!" which turned the laugh on the muscular member of the group.

"I think I'd rather be parlor maid," sweetly chimed in a little blonde beauty, with fluffy bangs.

"Suits you to a T," was the gallant response from the younger men.

"And I'll have to stand guard to keep you from flirting," put in an adorer.

"Pot calling the kettle black!" was the saucy fling from a chorus of school-girls who were enjoying their first seaside vacation.

"Now, grandma," exclaimed the parlor maid to a beautiful old lady with silver hair, "you shall have a big chair right in the middle of the dining hall, and be manager-in-chief."

Meanwhile the landlord had been overcome.

"Ladies," he now managed to articulate, and certainly he meant it, "I don't know what to say; I don't know how to thank you. But I know what I'll do; I'll turn away the last one of those quarrelsome blacks; root and branch they shall go. I'm tired of living in bedlam. I shall go down at once and start them; then I'll telegraph to New York and take the first train out. Rest assured I shall be back to your relief as soon as possible."

The proprietor had made himself heard in the confusion, and as he left the parlor hearty cheers followed him, when immediately the groups of talkers broke out again into plans and promises.

"Organize! Organize!" thundered a big man who had been jostled from his morning paper. "There can be no success without system."

"Hear! Hear!" roared the fun-loving fellows. "Down with the crowd to the lower regions! Come on with your constitution and by-laws! Hold fast to law and order! Give us liberty, or death--pumpkin pies and lily-white hands! Hurrah! On to the kitchen!"

With mock circumspection they were forcing couples to pair off; but the level-headed matrons soon arranged matters more to the purpose. The various branches of work were assigned to willing hands that only awaited the signal for action.

Great was the consternation of the mutineers when the "boss" appeared in the dismantled kitchen and ordered them all off the premises. In vain they protested, laying the blame on first one and then another. Their day of grace was ended and no quarter shown. Wilfully and from sheer love of bickering, they had offended all sense of justice and propriety, and in unbroken ranks they must go.

When the fiat had irretrievably gone forth, they showed again the claws and the cloven foot. The "cook-lady" said she "didn't hafter work nohow;" she reckoned she could "git along." The maids and the waiters took the cue and were equally independent. But though paid their wages in full, they were discharged without "a recommend"; and this, in the height of the season, was no small privation.

"Teach them a lesson!" muttered the proprietor with satisfaction. "Serves them right! I'm rather glad of the row."

Cheerily the guests fell to work in their several departments, and if more than one match for life was not made among the young people, it was from no lack of genuine admiration in their new roles. The lads and lassies were happy and rosy and busy at their self-appointed tasks. The white-coated waiters were dubbed "No. 47," "No. 50," and so on, and right nobly they served the well-spread tables, which lacked nothing, not even the boon of contentment, which so helps digestion.

The flushed matrons behind big kitchen aprons, with diamonds locked away in the hotel safe, took turns to perfection. Many guests took their ease, and were mere lookers-on at the frolic; but a right goodly company put their shoulders to the wheel.

When the new corps of "help" were installed, they found the hotel clean and tidy from attic to cellar, and everything in its proper place.

The episode was one to be remembered by the malcontents, who had had a severe lesson; by the host, who had seen a genuinely good side of human nature; and the ladies who had so nobly stepped into the breach, learned during their brief period of servitude to be more patient and considerate to those who serve.

[The end]
Eugenia Dunlap Potts's short story: Turning The Tables

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