It was very quiet at the Ponderosa ranch. Only Hoss Cartwright was present to look after his nephew Mitch and niece Pam. They were 10-year-old twins and quite enterprising. Their father, Adam Cartwright, was therefore overjoyed that he and his father Ben and youngest brother Joe could take a break for business on their ranch. In addition, Hoss had offered to take good care of the children.
That particular afternoon Mitch and Pam came in asking, “ Dear Uncle Hoss, what do we eat later?”
Hoss looked up from his newspaper and replied, “
I'm about to go into the kitchen and make pancakes for the three of us. They're much better than Hop Sing's.”
Hop Sing was the faithful Chinese cook of the Cartwrights.
“Uncle Hoss, how do you want to do that if you can't get in the kitchen.?”, Mitch asked carefully.
“Hop Sing isn't here, so now I can show you my baking skills. Keep Cody out of the kitchen”, answered his great uncle.
Pam let the shepherd dog Cody out.
In the kitchen, Hoss first put on an apron. Then he picked up a cookbook and looked up the recipe for pancakes.
“You take what we need: eggs, milk, flour, butter and a frying pan”, said Hoss.
The twins set everything up. They sat down at the kitchen table and watched Hoss get to work. He mixed everything up and stirred in a bowl. Soon the eggshells lay on the ground, the butter in the pan and next to it and part of the batter on the ground.
“Uncle Hoss, we think all the batter belongs either in the bowl or in the pan and not on the ground”, Mitch said carefully.
“That's true but it slipped out of my hands”, replied his uncle.
The twins just left it that way. Mitch whispered Pam something in the ear and she nodded. They snuck out of the kitchen and took Cody to Jenny and Sean Wilkins' house. They lived not far from the Cartwrights and were good friends with the twins. Jenny and Sean's father, Steve, saw the trio coming and stopped them.
“Mitch en Pam, what are you doing here?”, he asked worriedly.
“Uncle Hoss is baking pancakes but most of the batter is throughout the kitchen. Can we eat here?”, asked Mitch.
“Of course you can. Just come inside”, said Steve.
The twins took off and tied up their horses. Cody followed them inside.
“Molly, only put 2 extra plates on the table”, Steve told his wife.
Molly also knew the twins well and said, “Welcome guys.”
Pam told what was going on at home.
“Then you eat our pancakes here”, said Molly.
The twins and Cody went to play with Jenny and Sean until they could get to the table.
On the Ponderosa, the plan to bake pancakes went completely into the fog. The kitchen had been turned into a true battlefield where the batter had won it from Hoss.
He saw that the children were gone and said:“Dadburnit, now they let me clean up all the mess.”
There was nothing left for Hoss but to start cleaning.
When Mitch, Pam and Cody tasted Molly's pancakes, the oldest of the twins suggested, “ Wouldn't you like to come and bake them with Hop Sing when it's our birthday? Then you'll keep eating right away.”
“We promise nothing, but we're going to discuss it with your father, grandpa and Hop Sing”, answered Steve.
The Cartwrights could agree with that.
This evening was a lesson for the twins where they had learned not to let their uncle Hoss cook and Hoss had learned his lesson not to bake pancakes himself.