Our small house sat back from the street nestled in some trees and bushes. It was across the street to the west of the lumberyard where daddy worked. Beside this little bungalow, right on the corner to the north sat a huge house. Our little bungalow was back from the street just enough that most people would miss it driving by.
To the south was a hill that rose to the next street. It was high enough and steep enough you couldn’t see the street from the little house. The hill was covered with bushes and trees and they made it feel like the bungalow was sitting in an enchanted forest, anyway to a child.
We lived in this quaint little house from the time I was 2 until I was 5. It had two very small bedrooms and the living room and kitchen were one room. The bathroom was so small there was barely enough room to turn around.
For my 2nd birthday my mom bought me a set of baking dishes and a tea set. This was my favorite toy to play with when the weather was nice. I had a little kitchen outside on the south side of the house, just around the corner from the front door.
I had a cardboard box that was my oven, complete with all the dials drawn on it and daddy had cut the front so it would open like an oven door. Beside it sat another box that was the cabinet. It had drawers drawn on the front and a sink on the top. I used a little table and chairs to complete the kitchen. For water I had a small pitcher.
The days that I was not at grandmothers I would spend the whole morning baking in preparation for a special guest. I would start early and begin to make my Mud Pie cakes, cookies and cupcakes. My recipe for cake was very simple, 2 teacups of dirt, 1 handful imaginary sugar and 2 imaginary eggs, and enough water to form a ball. Then press it into a cake pan or muffin tins. The cakes would then be put into the oven to bake.
While the cakes and cupcakes were baking I would mix up some cookies. The recipe for the cookies was 3 teacups of dirt, 2 handfuls of imaginary sugar, 2 imaginary eggs, and some chocolate chips (small rocks). Then roll the dough into a ball and pressed flat. This cookie recipe did better if baked in the sun, so I would put them on the little cookie sheets and then on the lawn to bake.
When everything was baked to perfection I would set the table for two with the little tea set. Carefully arranged on little serving platters would be an assortment of Mud Pie cookies and some of the cupcakes.
Then it was into the house to put on clean clothes for the tea party. They have the red dirt in Medicine Lodge and I was always covered in it when I was finished baking my cakes and cookies. I changed clothes at least once during the day so I would look good for my guest of honor at the tea party. His arrival was the highlight of my day.
Every day around 1:30 the guest of honor would arrive. He was always in a hurry to finish his appointed rounds, but he would put down everything he had in his hands and sit down in my little chair and take time to have a tea party with a little girl. He would pretend to eat the Mud Pie cookies and drink the tea I poured into the tiny cups.
He would talk about my wonderful cookies and what he had seen on his route that day and would always have a pat for my ever-present cocker spaniel, Brownie. When he finished his tea he always slipped a cookie or cupcake into his pocket before he left to finish his route.
25 years later while visiting my grandfather, Jim Hart, I drove him down town to do some errands. Before I drove him home he wanted me to come with him to the post office. When we arrived at the window, he told me the postmaster’s name but did not provide the postmaster with my name. He then asked the postmaster if he remembered me. After looking at me for a few seconds he said I had to be the Mud Pie Queen. The one that wanted him to eat the mud pie cookies and have a tea party everyday I was home.
He said he had enjoyed the few minutes we spent together each day for the little tea party and that it had brightened up his day. He didn’t say how far he carried the little cupcakes or cookies he left there carrying in his pocket, but I would suspect not too far or they would have begun to fall apart in his pocket.
A couple of years ago we purchased dirt to put in the yard to do some reseeding. I had in my mind that a ton would be a mountain of dirt. When I arrived home from shopping the dirt had been delivered. I was really surprised at how small the pile sitting in the back yard was.
Looking at that pile of dirt made me think of making mud pies. That pile of dirt would have been enough for the mud pie queen to make Mud Pie cookies and cupcakes for the Postman all summer. To email Sandy: [email protected]
