The Proof is in the Pudding

By Nancy

Author’s note: The pudding in this story is not steamed plum pudding but a cake – and a most worthy opponent.

A Christmas tale is what you’re wanting, Samuel? A Christmas tale indeed. Very well then, top off your glass and I swear on this magnificent bottle of wine that all I convey is truth or I am not Joseph Cartwright.

I rarely enjoy the kind of quiet that encircled the dining table that evening. Catherine, who as you know is over-inclined toward curious opinions regarding the rearing of children, persuaded me – as only Catherine can, I might add – that we should include our sons at table after they attained a certain age. I gave my permission with the gravest of misgivings but as is oft the case, Catherine’s intuition in the matter proved sound. More often than not, having John and Benjamin at table is most agreeable. Though the conversation is not always intelligent it is beyond doubt enlightening and most assuredly robust. Catherine conceded to me the point that others of our acquaintance might not hold with such radical practice as having one’s children at table and so when guests are invited, yourself and family excepted, John and Benjamin dine above stairs.

But this night, during the hallowed days of Christmas, the silence in the room was not attributable to the lack of our sons’ presence for they sat at table with their young eyes round as scallops. Nay, the hush was directly attributable to the abominable creation centered so perfectly on the silver platter that Catherine had been gifted by her relatives of Philadelphia. I thought the fabrication to be a plum pudding of the type our French grandmother was wont to bake at harvest time when we were lads. And in truth I looked forward to tasting one after so many years, provided there was, of course, ample rum sauce to moisten the serving. However, this . . . this . . . baked abomination was like none I’d ever encountered.

Laugh if you will, but I warrant you will find I do not embellish.

I took knife to the pudding as Catherine requested. I should have heeded the information that neither the cook nor the servant could divide the pudding into sections suitable for consumption. But nay, I – like any other man worth his salt – raised the cutting instrument and plunged it into the ghastly dessert.

Samuel, I tell you now that I made a valiant attempt to thrust the knife into the dessert. The knife – which is not inclined toward breaking at the hilt as it is a fine blade I acquired as a privateer – aye, that very knife scarce dimpled the dessert. The tipmost portion of the point of the blade pierced the dessert and then blast if the thing did not stay so, quivering like a young scamp found aboard without permission.

And blast if I could excise the knife! It held fast. I braced my left hand atop the dessert, for in truth there was no danger of compressing it. With my right I gave a most powerful heave to the hilt. It moved not. I hauled. It did not nudge. I attempted to hoist the blade straight up. To no avail. I swear it, Samuel, the wretched knife was fixed as a barnacle.

You can envisage what this performance elicited from John and Benjamin, I’ve no doubt. I ask you, how would we two have responded given the self same opportunity? They gave over to the loudest mirth and slapping of hands on table you have seen since . . . well, since we two, I wager.

And so I issued a challenge to the two stalwart young Cartwrights. Could either do better than their sire? John, as is his custom, leapt to the dare and in quick time hove to alongside me. Such contortions of face and variety of sounds I had not seen or heard in quite some time. And it was not for lack of strength and determination that the lad could not remove the blade from the pudding.

Know you of what I thought, Samuel? Recall the chronicle of King Arthur and the sword Excalibur? Aye, solid in the stone. Exactly. And poor John, it would appear, was not to prevail against the pudding.

More wine? Aye, it is at that.

So, where was I?

Ah, yes. John did not prevail against the blade and the pudding. Therefore I turned my eye to Benjamin and he was, as most times, scrutinizing the quandary most diligently. When I asked whether the lad desired to try his muscle he beamed only and said he’d the notion if one so exceptional as his sire could not succeed than what chance had he.

Indeed, he does. The lad has a gift for humor as well as for words.

All the same, early on the morrow he sought my company and appealed that he be allowed to conduct a test with the pudding and the blade. He pledged no injury would come to the knife but gave no more information than that.

Well, Samuel, what say you? Would you hand over the problem to the lad? So did I. He is ever inventing with bits and pieces and I was eager to see what he would do.

We’d had a good fall of snow that winter and the weather had been long cold so that all the lesser ponds were frozen, though not completely the one behind here. There is part of that pond that never freezes but flows with warm water year round.

I hid me by the window. Here, stand with me so you might view the scene and see in your mind's eye what occurred.

I stood as here and watched Benjamin trudge through the high snow of the garden. That plum pudding was so stout that he carried it like a brick and truly it was as dense as one.

What was he about? I’ll tell you.

He took a line and knotted it around the pudding from several directions and tied it fast to the trunk. I sensed what he intended to happen was that line would hold the pudding to the ground. But for what reason? I was as perplexed as you appear now.

Having used the first line, Benjamin produced a second one. He went up in the tree there by the pond, see? Shinnied out on that branch and he draped the second line over it. Fed the line through a block. And then down he went. The lad fashioned a stopper knot at the end of the line and he heaved until he had the block snug below the branch. That done, he tied the other end of the line to the hilt of the blade.

Aye, indeed it is. The lad’s always been one for using whatever’s needed to add to his strength.

Did he succeed, you ask? Oh, more than he’d dared fancy, I’ve no doubt. Benjamin grabbed the line and he heaved, put his legs into it.

So much happened at the same time that I doubt the lad knows to this day what occurred in all. For when he heaved on the line, that noble blade rose and with it came the pudding. The pudding strained against its anchoring line. The blade begged to be released from its prison. Benjamin gave out a hearty yell and heaved again.

Perhaps I should pause while you catch your breath, brother?

Fine, then.

Benjamin gave out a hearty yell and heaved again. Truly, my heart seized when I saw the knife fly from the pudding and hurl into the sky. Benjamin saw the possibilities also and he made to abandon the setting. As he did so he tripped against the pudding line. As I got me from the house toward Benjamin, the knife plummeted to earth and sliced the very line that held the pudding. That horrid dessert, freed from its bonds, shot straight as a cannon ball and I warrant you weighed as much, too. It skittered out to the pond, gained speed on the ice, and cast off into the water where it sounded to the depths like the monster that it was.

When the lad spied me standing, most assuredly with my mouth agape like a dullard, he paled as the snow. Benjamin hurried to his feet, dusted off the snow as best he could from his attire, reached down to starboard, and his hand came up with the knife. He offered it to me with a wan smile and said it had not been harmed.

Samuel, I could not speak. I had taken in so much air I was billowed like a full sail. And when I finally recovered it was to let loose such a scream of laughter, of pure hilarity, that I had to lean against the tree.

Benjamin hastened to apologize for losing the pudding but when I finally caught breath I assured him he had wrought me such a favor as I could never repay. At that moment, we both spied half the pudding nearby, for only half had been committed to a watery grave.

And so, brother, Benjamin picked up the half and handed it to me. We proceeded with great solemnity as far out on the pond as we dared and then I bowled it along the ice and it plunged to the depths.

That done we returned to the house and with great stealth and greater cunning, made our way to the cutlery where we placed the knife as if it had always been there. Then we swore blood oath – spit on it as you and I did in our youth – to never divulge how the blade came to be rescued or what became of the dessert. And now only you, Samuel, have joined our secret company.

Know you what Catherine told me? It is all the style now to call such a plum pudding a fruitcake. Aye. And I warrant the dessert will soon be out of fashion as well. Who, I ask you, could consume such a thing?

The End