Mrs. Miller's Kitchen

The last house around the cove belonged to Bill Miller and his extensive family. As children had arrived through the years, he had embarked on a building spree and the old farm featured a variety of added on rooms and levels, all slightly on the haphazard side, some with slight tilts, some going off at peculiar angles, a few detached and separate but connected through partially covered walkways. Here the family worked the land, growing vegetables, raising sheep, haying and hauling with a yoke of ancient oxen and selling berries during the warm summer months. Mrs. Miller made homemade jam and canned goods for McIntyre's Store while her sons worked a mildly prosperous lumber mill and her daughters learned to use the kitchen spinning wheel to turn wool into clothing. They were, as were most island families, largely self sufficent, good neighbors, and slightly isolated - unused to the fast pace of the mainland or the entitled attitude of the tourists who were more than willing to pay to pick berries in the hot sun. Bill and his family watched in amusement as these pale faced, fragile visitors filled their buckets with strawberries and blueberries, some even brave enough to venture into the thorny blackberry briars in their imitation leather sandals and bare legs and Mrs. Miller soon learned that a small bottle of fresh cream ready on their departure could fetch a good price. Picnic tables and rough hewn benches soon followed and after a few summers, the Millers were serving lunches - milky white filets of fish and lobster salad on homebread bread, fresh corn on the cob and thick, sweet chowder with chunks of real potatoes and onions, fresh caught haddock, cold summer salads with wedges of tomatoes and cucumbers and buttermilk dressing. The tourists sat on the splintery benches and ate off paper plates, washing everything down with lemonade or iced tea or ice cold beer quietly and stealthily brewed behind the lumber mill. Soon Bill had built a small roadside stand at the beginning of the dirt driveway and the Miller children manned it faithfully, gleefully collecting baskets of American dollars for their mother's figs and preserves and square cardboard containers of berries covered in plastic wrap and wrapped with ribbons. Bill crafted and painted a sign proclaiming "Mrs. Miller's Kitchen" and a bright red arrow pointing toward the house and nailed it atop the little stand. Children clamored to have their pictures taken with the oxen and yet another small business was born - small 3x4 pictures were mounted in paper picture frames and sold for $1.00 apiece. The Millers had discovered wealth and fame beyond their limited island dreams and were astonished at their success. Imagine, Bill told my grandmother, these damn fools are paying good money to make my livin' for me! Nana laughed and told him all he needed was overnight cabins and he'd be a regular innkeeper. The following summer, three tiny cabins had been erected and furnished and for $10 a night, you could sleep on a proper cot and have your breakfast served right in the family kitchen. The phrase "Bed and Breakfast" had yet to be invented but the Millers cashed in, ahead of their time and still amazed at the foolishness of people so willing to part with their money for what they called a "genuine island experience" but which amounted to no more than a little home cooking and an hour or two of chores.

Mrs. Miller's Kitchen overflowed with people "from away" summer after summer. Many returned over the years and became regular guests, often bringing friends who brought friends. The Millers welcomed them all with open arms,
fresh food, and a place to lay their heads at night and listen to the ocean. Peace, sweetness, renewal and homemade biscuits were served to everyone who visited.

The last hurricane took the sign, the roadside stand, the cabins and several of the crooked additions. The Millers returned to working the land but the children had married and moved on and Bill never had the heart to rebuild so Mrs. Miller's Kitchen became a memory and the tourists took to day trips while sleeping on the mainland. A new team of oxen replaced the old one and the hay fields eventually overtook the vegetable garden and the picnic tables. Everything has it's time and place and season and Mrs. Miller's Kitchen was closed.