While the grocer wrapped up her purchases she stooped her fair smiling face towards Helen to say, “My gracious, honey, how swell we do look in our new coat! Where did Momma buy that for you?”
Helen looked down at it as if to see what coat it was, as if she had forgotten that she wore a coat. Then she said, “She made it, Mother made it, out of an old coat Gramma Houghton sent us. The collar and cuffs are off Cousin Celia’s last-winter one.”
Aunt Mattie was lost in admiration. She turned Helen around to get the effect of the back. “Well, your mother is the wonder!” she cried heartily, again. “I never saw anybody to beat her for style! Give Evangeline Knapp a gunny sack and a horse-blanket and she’ll turn you out a fifty-dollar coat, I always tell ’em. Would anybody but her have dreamed of using that blue and light green together? It makes it look positively as if it came right from Fifth Avenue. I don’t dare buy me a new hat or a suit unless Evangeline says it’s all right. You can’t fool her on style! What did you ever do, Lester Knapp, to deserve such a wife, I’d like to know.”
She laughed again, as Aunt Mattie always did, just for the sake of laughing, gave Henry and Helen each a cookie out of her paper bag, and took up her boughten salad and boughten boiled ham and went off, repeating, “Now, folks, don’t you go and give me away!”
The grocery store seemed very silent after she left. Mr. Knapp bought his yeast-cake and package of oatmeal and they went out without a word. They didn’t feel like talking any more. The children were eating fast on their cookies to finish them before they reached home.
They turned up the walk to the house in silence, stood for some time scraping the snow and mud off their shoes on the wire mat at the foot of the steps and went on their toes up to the cocoa-fiber mat in front of the door.
When they finally opened the door and stepped in, an appetizing odor of hot chocolate and something fresh out of the oven met them. Also the sound of the clock striking half-past six. Good, they were on time. It was very important to be on time. Little Stephen sat on the bottom step of the stairs, waiting for them, his face swollen and mottled, his eyes very red, his mouth clamped shut in a hard line.
“Oh, gee! I bet Stevie’s been bad again!” murmured Henry pityingly. He went quickly to his little brother and tried to toss him up. But the heavy child was too much of a weight for his thin arms. He only succeeded in giving him a great hug. Helen did this too, and laid the fresh, outdoor coolness of her cheek against the little boy’s hot face, glazed by tears. They none of them made a sound.
Lester Knapp stood silently looking at them.
Their mother came to the door, fresh in a well-ironed, clean, gingham house-dress.
“Well, Evie dear, what’s the news from home?” asked Lester, as the children separated and began quickly hanging up their wraps. Stephen slipped off back towards the kitchen.
“Oh, all right,” she said in her dear, well-modulated voice, her eyes on Helen, to whom she now said quietly, with a crescendo effect of patient self-restraint, “Don’t wriggle around on one foot that way to take off your rubbers. Sit down on a chair. No, not that one, it’s too high. This one. Lay down your schoolbooks. You can’t do anything with them under your arm. There are your mittens on the floor. Put them in your pocket and you’ll know where to find them. Unless they’re damp. Are they damp? If they are, take them into the kitchen and put them on the rack to dry.” As the child turned away, she called after her, making her give a nervous jump, “Not too close to the stove, or they’ll burn.”
She turned to Henry now (Stephen had disappeared). He froze to immobility, looking at her out of timid shadowed eyes, as if like a squirrel, he hoped by standing very still to make himself small. …
Apparently Henry had taken off his coat and hat satisfactorily and had suitably disposed of his mittens, for, after passing her eyes over his small person in one sweep, she turned away, saying over her shoulder, “I’m just going to put supper on the table. You’ll have time to wash your hands while I dish up the things.”
Henry drew a long breath and started upstairs. His father stood looking after him till with a little start he came to himself and followed.
The supper bell rang by the time their hands and faces were washed. Helen and Henry washed Stephen’s. They did not talk. They kept their attention on what they were doing, rinsing out the washbasin after they had finished, hanging the towels up smoothly and looking responsibly around them at the immaculate little room before they went downstairs.
The supper was exquisitely cooked, nourishing, light, daintily served. Scalloped potatoes, done to a turn; a broiled beefsteak with butter melting oozily on it; frothing, well-whipped chocolate; small golden biscuits made out of a health-flour.
The children tucked their clean napkins under their chins, spread them out carefully over their clean clothes
