White Bread E-Book

Zona Gale

• Herausgeber: DigiCat
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

In Zona Gale's poignant novel "White Bread," readers are drawn into the intricate tapestry of small-town life in early 20th-century America. Gale's literary style is characterized by rich, evocative language and a keen psychological insight into her characters. Through a blend of realism and an underlying critique of societal norms, she explores themes of gender roles, socioeconomic class, and familial relationships. The narrative revolves around a community's struggle with change and the tension between tradition and modernity, effectively illustrating the complexities of American identity during a transformative era. Zona Gale, an influential writer and social activist, was born in Portage, Wisconsin, in 1874. Her firsthand experiences as a woman navigating the constraints of her time undoubtedly shaped her creative vision. Gale was not only one of the first female members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters but also served as a voice for women's rights and labor movements. Her deep understanding of human emotions and societal dynamics informs the rich character development and authentic dialogue found within "White Bread." "White Bread" is a must-read for those interested in early American literature and the exploration of women's roles in society. Gale's vivid storytelling and profound social commentary invite readers to reflect on the historical context of her time while resonating with contemporary themes of identity and belonging. This book will appeal to anyone who appreciates finely crafted narratives that interrogate the fabric of community and individual existence.

Leseprobe

Zona Gale

White Bread

 

EAN 8596547086048

DigiCat, 2022 Contact: [email protected]

Table of Contents

Cover

Titlepage

Text

White Bread

Table of Contents

EVERY one in the room had promised something. Mis' Tyrus Burns offered her receipt for filled cookies. "My filled cookie receipt," she said, "is something that very, very few have ever got out of me. I give it to Mis' Bradford—when she moved away. I've give it to one or two of my kin—by word of mouth and not wrote down. And Carol Beck had it from me when she was married—wrote out on note-paper, formal—but understood to be a personal receipt and not general at all. This 'll be the first time I've ever give in to make it public, and nothing on earth but the church carpet would make me now."

"Me either, with my Christmas cakes," said Mis' Arthur Port. "I've made 'em for fairs and bazaars and suppers, and give the material when needed it for the children's shoes, but I feel like the time had come for the real supreme sacrifice. I'll put 'em in the book with the rest of you."

Mis' Older's salad-dressing, Mis' Eldred's fruit cordial, Mis' Regg's mince-meat, Mis' Emmons's pie-crust—these were all offered up. The basement dining-room of the church was filled with women that spring afternoon, and a spirit was moving among them like a little flame, kindling each one to giving. The place in which they were gathered, its furnace in the corner, its reed melodeon for the Sunday-school, its black-boards, and its locked cupboards filled with dishes which the women had earned when a like flame quickened—this place might have been an austere height where they were face to face with the ultimate purpose of giving, of being. For abruptly children's shoes, parlor curtains, the little hoard accumulating "over back" on a cupboard shelf became as nothing, and the need to be of use was on them all, like a cry involuntarily answered to a cry. That exquisite reflection of each in each was there, obeying strange laws of repetition and contagion—a gentle, positive power, infinitely stronger than the negative infection of mob violence. It was as if the very church carpet which the receipt-book's sale must buy was but the homely means for the exercise of the mysterious force which moved them.

Save only one. Mis' Jane Mellish sat by the serving-pantry door, no more self-forgetful than when she was in her own kitchen.

"What's the book going to be called?" she had asked when they had voted to prepare it.

"The Katy Town First Church Ladies' Choice Receipt Book," they had finally decided.

"How can you call it that if it ain't all the ladies?" Jane had inquired further. "Some o' the ladies 'ain't got a choice receipt to their names nor their brains."

"Such as 'ain't can see to the printing," Mis' Tyrus Burns suggested. "Would you druther do that, Jane?" she added, tartly.

Jane's lips moved before she spoke—a little helpless way that they had, as if they were not equal to what they must do. "Who's going to write the dedication?" she asked.

No one had thought of a dedication, but it occurred to no one to question it. And the answer was inevitable.

"You'd ought to do that," they said to Jane: For who else of their number had ever published poems in the Katy Town Epitome, and whom else had its editor asked to "do special funeral and wedding write-ups"?

Jane nodded and hid her relief, and presently faced the question which all along she had been dreading:

"Now, bread. We'd ought to have some real special breads," they said. "Who's going to do them?"

Mis' Holmes's salt-rising bread, Mis' Jacobs's potato-bread, Mis' Grace's half-graham-and-half-rye—these were all offered. It was Mis' Tyrus Burns who said that which they were all thinking. She turned to Jane Mellish.

"Land! Jane," she said, "what it 'd be to have your white-bread receipt for our volume!"

At this a hush fell, and they looked at Jane. For years her white-bread receipt had baffled them all. Nobody made white bread like Jane, and no one could find out how she made it—whether by flour or mixing, or, as some suspected, a home-made lard, or an unknown baking-powder, or a secret yeast packed in occasional boxes from Jane's relatives oversea. Whatever the process or the component, she kept it. After a few rebuffs, Katy Town understood that the bread was Jane's prerogative. So they praised it to her, and experimented privately, and owned to one another their defeat. No one ever asked Jane any more. When Mis' Tyrus Burns did so, the silence was as if some one had spoken impertinently, or had made an historical reference too little known to be in good taste, or had quoted poetry.

"I'm going to compose an original dedication," Jane said, stiffly. "I guess, ladies, that's my share."

Mis' Tyrus Burns sighed. " 'Most any of us," she said, "could stodge up a dedication to a book. Or we could even go without one, if we just had to. But that white-bread receipt of yours had ought to be in this book by rights, Jane Mellish, with a page all to itself."

Jane was silent. And when little Miss Cold, of her heart's goodness, relieved the moment with, "None of you offered to give my cream cake a page all by itself, I notice," every one laughed gratefully, and spoke no more of Jane's bread.