ndelicacy."

It was with the advent of Gerda Lyberg that we became absolutely
certain, beyond the peradventure of any doubt, that there was such a
thing as the servant question. The knowledge had been gradually wafted
in upon us, but it was not until the lady from Stockholm had
definitively planted herself in our midst that we admitted to ourselves
openly, unblushingly, that the problem existed. Gerda blazoned forth the
enigma in all its force and defiance.

The remarkable thing about our latest acquisition was the singularly
blank state of her gastronomic mind. There was nothing that she knew.
Most women, and a great many men, intuitively recognize the physical
fact that water, at a certain temperature, boils. Miss Lyberg,
apparently seeking to earn her living in the kitchen, had no certain
views as to when the boiling point was reached. Rumors seemed vaguely to
have reached her that things called eggs dropped into water would, in
the course of time--any time, and generally less than a week--become
eatable. Letitia bought a little egg-boiler for her--one of those
antique arrangements in which the sands of time play to the soft-boiled
egg. The maiden promptly boiled it with the eggs, and undoubtedly
thought that the hen, in a moment of perturbation, or aberration, had
laid it. I say "thought" because it is the only term I can use. It is,
perhaps, inappropriate in connection with Gerda.

Potatoes, subjected to the action of hot water, grow soft. She was
certain of that. Whether she tested them with the poker, or with her
hands or feet, we never knew. I inclined to the last suggestion. The
situation was quite marvelous. Here was an alleged worker, in a
particular field, asking the wages of skilled labor, and densely
ignorant of every detail connected with her task. It seemed unique.
Carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, seamstresses, dressmakers,
laundresses--all the sowers and reapers in the little garden of our
daily needs, were forced by the inexorable law of competition to possess
some inkling of the significance of their undertakings. With the cook it
was different. She could step jubilantly into any kitchen without the
slightest idea of what she was expected to do there. If she knew that
water was wet and that fire was hot, she felt amply primed to demand a
salary.

Impelled by her craving for Swedish literature, Letitia struggled with
Miss Lyberg. Compared with the Swede, my exquisitely ignorant wife was
a culina