Inklings // September 2024

What ho, readers all! The Inklings prompt for September (check out the rules for linking up here!) is a scene in a kitchen in book or film. I’ve decided to share the scene near the very beginning of Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott in which Rose meets Phebe.

As the scene starts, Rose hears birdsong while sitting sadly by herself in the parlor. She follows the sound, and it leads her to the china-closet.

“In there? How funny!” she said. But when she entered, not a bird appeared except the everlastingly kissing swallows on the Canton china that lined the shelves. All of a sudden Rose’s face brightened, and softly opening the slide, she peered into the kitchen. But the music had stopped, and all she saw was a girl in a blue apron scrubbing the hearth. Rose stared about her for a minute, and then asked abruptly:
“Did you hear that mockingbird?”
“I should call it a phoebe bird,” answered the girl, looking up with a twinkle in her black eyes.
“Where did it go?”
“It is here still.”
“Where?”
“In my throat. Do you want to hear it?”
“Oh, yes! I’ll come in.” And Rose crept through the slide to the wide shelf on the other side, being too hurried and puzzled to go round by the door.
The girl wiped her hands, crossed her feet on the little island of carpet where she was stranded in a sea of soapsuds, and then, sure enough, out of her slender throat came the swallow’s twitter, the robin’s whistle, the bluejay’s call, the thrush’s song, the wood dove’s coo, and many another familiar note, all ending as before with the musical ecstasy of a bobolink singing and swinging among the meadow grass on a bright June day.
Rose was so astonished that she nearly fell off her perch, and, when the little concert was over, clapped her hands delightedly.
“Oh, it was lovely! Who taught you?”
“The birds,” answered the girl with a smile, as she fell to work again.
“It is very wonderful! I can sing, but nothing half so fine as that. What is your name, please?”
“Phebe Moore.”
“I’ve heard of phoebe birds, but I don’t believe the real ones could do that,” laughed Rose, adding, as she watched with interest the scattering of dabs of soft soap over the bricks, “May I stay and see you work? It is very lonely here in the parlor.”
“Yes, indeed, if you want to,” answered Phebe, wringing out her cloth in a capable sort of way that impressed Rose very much.
“It must be fun to swash the water round and dig out the soap. I’d love to do it, only Aunt wouldn’t like it, I suppose,” said Rose, quite taken with the new employment.
“You’d soon get tired. So you’d better keep tidy and look on while I work.”

The scene goes on for awhile longer – they keep talking and they tell each other their backstories and whatnot – but it’s a little long for a blog post, so I’ll end the snippet here.

Have you read Eight Cousins? What’s your favorite Louisa May Alcott book?