Read Wandering Girl for Free Online Page A

coffee, so you can put the percolator on.”
    She left me there feeling rather breathless. Every time she came over to talk to me I was beginning to feel a sense of debility creeping over me. I set about the task of getting their breakfast ready. The bacon and eggs smelt scrumptious, making my mouth water.
    After I dished their breakfast up on a plate, I purposely left the pan near the stove. I had no intentions of cleaning it as I was going to have a good fry up when they left. I made the toast, put it on the toast racks, then as everything was prepared I went in to see if they were ready to eat.
    Mr Bigelow was there going through some papers, so I went into the kitchen, loaded the trolley up and took everything into the dining room. I took the breakfast off the trolley, set it down on the table, then checked to see if nothing was missing and all was in place. I had forgotten the serviettes! So I quickly went to the drawer to get the rings out, polished them, then rolled the serviettes up and slipped them in the rings, which I placed on their individual plates.

    Feeling quite pleased about getting breakfast ready all by myself, I turned to Mr Bigelow who, by now, had finished going through his papers. I said to him, “Breakfast is ready,” then walked out knowing full well that I wouldn’t get a reply.
    I went about cleaning the kitchen. When everything was tidy I sat down to have my plate of weeties thinking, “This is not the only thing I am going to eat this morning.”
    I carried on in my normal way, so as not to arouse suspicions if she were to come into the kitchen - which she did to tell me off for taking breakfast in when she wasn’t present in the dining room.
    I apologized and explained to her that when I saw Mr Bigelow sitting at the table, I naturally thought he was waiting for his breakfast. She carried on in her usual tone, I was to wait till she rang the bell and if ever there was a time that Mr Bigelow was on his own, I wasn’t to go in. It wasn’t very nice for a slave girl to be all alone in the presence of a male member of the family.
    She asked me how much coffee had I put in the percolator? Seeing that it was my first effort in making coffee, especially in a percolator - I had never set eyes on one before - I felt rather pleased. For once I thought she was going to praise me up, for making good coffee, but my sense of her good intentions soon became dispirited, when I told her I poured half a tin of coffee into the percolator.
    â€˜You are a very stupid girl! You need only to put a couple of dessert-spoons in. Now hop up and make a fresh one!”
    So I left my breakfast and followed her into the dining room to get the coffee pot.
    I had been stunned by the comment she made about being alone with her husband. I couldn’t understand it. To make it look good I immediately went into the dining room with the trolley and made myself busy. I had other intentions on my mind as soon as they would leave.
    Now, I was out in the kitchen again, washing up the dishes when I heard her yoohoo. Whenever she was at home, or if I was outside doing things, or she couldn’t see me, she had a habit of yoohooing out to me, like she was out in the paddock, trying to round up a horse or something.
    I went running to see what she wanted. She told me I was to go get Mr Bigelow’s shoes from the shoe rack and make sure they were clean and shining.
    So I ran out to get his shoes. They looked brand new as I always made sure that all shoes were kept cleaned because, with my heavy workload, I had a fear of being scolded if the other jobs were not done on time. So I quickly grabbed his shoes and ran back into the house with them and put them down on the floor outside their bedroom.
    She briskly came out of the room and told me to pick the shoes up and pass them to her in the proper manner, as it wasn’t in her category to bend down and pick things up from the floor. I apologized and