Part 33 (1/2)

Miss Ida Bell Ha.s.siebrock, at the right of the table, turned her head so that, against the window, her profile, somewhat thin, cut into the gloom.

”There's a lot of things I wish around here,” she said, without a ripple to her lips.

”h.e.l.lo, ma!”

”I'll warm up the kohlrabi, Loo.”

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock, in the green black of a cotton umbrella and as spa.r.s.e of frame, moved around to the gas-range, sc.r.a.ping a match and dragging a pot over the blue flame.

”Never mind, ma; I ain't hungry.”

At the left of the table Genevieve Ha.s.siebrock, with thirteen's crab-like silhouette of elbow, rigid plaits, and nose still hitched to the star of her nativity, wound an exceedingly long arm about Miss Ha.s.siebrock's trim waist-line.

”I got B in de-portment to-day, Loo. You owe me the wear of your spats Sunday.”

Miss Ha.s.siebrock squeezed the hand at her waist.

”All right, honey. Cut Loo a piece of bread.”

”Gussie Flint's mother scalded her leg with the wash-boiler.”

”Did she? Aw!”

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock came then, limping around, tilting the contents of the steaming pot to a plate.

”Sit down, ma; don't bother.”

Miss Ha.s.siebrock drew up, pinning a fringed napkin that stuck slightly in the unfolding across her s.h.i.+ning expanse of s.h.i.+rtwaist. Broke a piece of bread. Dipped.

Silence.

”Paula Krausnick only got C in de-portment. When the monitor pa.s.sed the basin, she dipped her sponge soppin'-wet.”

”Anything new, ma?”

Mrs. Ha.s.siebrock, now at the sink, swabbed a dish with gray water.

”My feet's killin' me,” she said.

Miss Ida Bell, who wore her hair in a coronet wound twice round her small head, crossed her knife and fork on her plate, folded her napkin, and tied it with a bit of blue ribbon.

”I think it's a shame, ma, the way you keep thumping around in your stocking feet like this was backwoods.”

”I can't get my feet in shoes--the joints--”

”You thump around as much as you darn please, ma. If Ida Bell don't like the looks of you, let her go home with some of her swell stenog friends.

You let your feet hurt you any old way you want 'em to. I'm going to buy you some arnica. Pa.s.s the kohlrabi.”

”Well, my swell 'stenog friends,' as you call them, keep themselves self-respecting girls without getting themselves talked about, and that's more than I can say of my sister. If ma had the right kind of gumption with you, she'd put a stop to it, all right.”