One of Mama's great pleasures was Melon à l'India, which is very hard to find now, but in those days the Waldorf always managed to have it on hand.
Mama said it reminded her of temple dancers and Kipling and that Russian who wrote The Song of India and long knives and natives killing Englishmen. It certainly reminded her of a lot.
It is made like this… if you ever want to feel like Mama eating Melon à l'India. Peel or pare a good-sized chilled cantaloupe, and slice the flesh the way you would an orange, into segments. Clean off the seeds and the threads, and dry with a cloth. Take rock candy—the oldfashioned kind—hammer it into dust, and dip the slices of melon into it. Add a teaspoon of Kirsch to a slice, pouring it over the rock candy and melon. Put the segments back in place until you have a whole melon again, holding it together with little metal pins if you have to.
Put the melon into a watertight melon mold, and pack in a freezer with three parts ice lumps and one part rock salt. Keep it there for three hours, then open, remove the pins, and serve.
Mama was very proud of that dish, and when it came, she served it and watched Jed eat it. But Jed acted as if it were just good ol' muskmelon with candy and rum… which in a way it almost was.
“Very good,” said Jed.
“Melon à l'India,” said Mama. “It means Melon of India.”
“That's what I thought,” said Jed. “French, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is,” said Mama, who would have liked to answer in French, but she was a little weak in verbs, and all she remembered of her lessons was, “The aunt of my uncle has a cat with a large tail.” Which is a humdinger of a line, but no good if someone asks if a dish is named in French… unless, of course, you are eating Cat à l'Orientale, which the Waldorf didn't serve… not then, anyway.
After the meal Papa ordered two good cigars and gave me his cigar band, and Mama and Fran went off among the palm trees, to see about their hair…
Papa and Jed sat there smoking, and Jed nodded to a lean man at the bar drinking Rhine wine with fizz. Papa said, “You feel pretty much at home here, Jed?”
Jed smiled. “Well, I should… I put in their baggage system. In fact I used to put in the baggage transfer system for all the hotels… but it got very boring. The big city isn't for me…”
“Does Fran know?”
“About me having lived in New York?”
“Well, yes.”
“Well, I tell you, Mr. Longstreet. I'm afraid to tell her. She might want to live here. I want to buy a few acres of land and some good standing timber and cut ties for the railroad company.”
“I see.”
“I want to get married and settle down in a small town… like my father… even if they are trying to move him off the land.”
“Noble thing, marriage,” said Papa (who said what he thought even if he had only a few good thoughts, but those he did have were of the best. Today people have a lot of thoughts… but they haven't the deep, solid honesty my father's had).
Mama and Fran came back from the palm trees, and Mama said, “Stevie is tired. I'll send him to bed with a bellboy.”
“I don't want to sleep with a bellboy,” I said.
“No, dear… just to show you the way.”
A few hours later I was awakened by a banging on my door. I sat up and Papa was sleeping on the bed beside me. I shook him, and he went to the door, and there was Mama with her coat over her nightgown.
“Fran isn't in yet.”
Papa yawned and smiled. “That's all right. Neither is Jed.”
“But don't you see… they are out together?”
“They say New York is up all night.”
“Oh, Henry, they'll get married.”
“Now, Sara…” said Papa. “There isn't anything wrong in getting married. I was afraid you were going to say they weren't.” And he looked at me as if he shouldn't talk in front of me. Papa had led a very sheltered life… even Gramp had not expected too much of him, because he always said Papa was a gentle soul who had the misfortune to be a gentleman.
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