e, beginning to wash
the plates and shrinking at the pain of scalding water.

"Hmp! Writing letters at this hour! One of your friends back East? I
thought it was about time somebody was looking you up. What do your
acquaintance think of you comin' West with Sylly?"

Now that she was at liberty to put a "stroke" of work; on Babe's dress,
"Momma" seemed in no particular hurry to do so. She stood in the middle
of the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked apron and
staring at Sheila. Her eyes were like Girlie's turned to stone, as blank
and blind as living eyes can be.

Sheila did not answer. She was white and her hands shook.

"Hmp!" said "Momma" again. "We aren't goin' to talk about our
acquaintance, are we? Well, some folks' acquaintance don't bear talkin'
about; they're either too fine or they ain't the kind that gets into
decent conversation." She walked away.

Sheila did her work, holding her anger and her misery away from her,
refusing to look at them, to analyze their cause. It was a very busy day.
The help Babe usually gave, and "Momma's" more effectual assistance, were
not to be had. Sheila cleaned up the kitchen, swept the dining-room, set
the table and cooked the supper. Her exquisite French omelette and savory
baked tomatoes were reviled. The West knows no cooking but its own, and,
like all victims of uneducated taste, it prefers the familiar bad to the
unfamiliar good.

"You've spoiled a whole can of tomatoes," said Babe.

Sylvester laughed good-humoredly: "Oh, well, Miss Sheila, you'll learn!"
This, to Sheila, whose omelette had been taught her by Mimi Lolotte and
whose baked tomatoes, delicately flavored with onion, were something to
dream about. And she had toasted the bread golden brown and buttered it,
and she had made a delectable vegetable soup! She had never before been
asked to cook a meal at Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue and she was eager to
please Sylvester. His comment, "You'll learn," fairly took her breath.
She would not sit down with them at the table, but hurried back into the
kitchen, put her scorched cheek against some cold linoleum, and cried.

By the time dinner was over and more dishes ready to be washed, the
cook's wounded pride was under control. Her few tears had left no
marks on her face. Babe, helping her, did not even know that there had
been a shower.

Babe was excited; her chewing was more energetic even than usual. It
smacked audibly.

"Say, Sheila, wot'll