s,
silver-polishers. He haunted department store basements in search of
them.

He opened his paper now and glanced at the head-lines and at the Monday
morning ads. "I see the Fair's got a spring housecleaning sale. They
advertise a new kind of extension curtain rod. And Scouro, three cakes
for a dime."

"If you waste one cent more on truck like that," Rose protested, placing
his breakfast before him, "when half the time I can't make the
housekeeping money last through the week!"

"Your ma did it."

"Fourteen years ago liver wasn't thirty-two cents a pound," retorted
Rose, "and besides--"

"Scramble 'em!" yelled Al, from the bedroom, by way of warning.

There was very little talk after that. The energies of three of them
were directed toward reaching the waiting desk or counter on time. The
energy of one toward making that accomplishment easy. The front door
slammed once--that was Pa, on his way; slammed again--Al. Floss rushed
into the dining-room fastening the waist-band of her skirt, her hat
already on. Rose always had a rather special breakfast for Floss. Floss
posed as being a rather special person. She always breakfasted last, and
late. Floss's was a fastidiousness which shrinks at badly served food, a
spotted table-cloth, or a last year's hat, while it overlooks a rent in
an undergarment or the accumulated dust in a hairbrush. Her blouse was
of the sheerest. Her hair shone in waves about her delicate checks. She
ate her orange, and sipped her very special coffee, and made a little
face over her egg that had been shirred in the oven or in some way
highly specialised. Then the front door slammed again--a semi-slam, this
time. Floss never did quite close a door. Rose followed her down the
hall, shut and bolted it, Chicago fashion. The sick woman in the front
bedroom had dropped into one of her fitful morning dozes. At eight
o'clock the little flat was very still.

If you knew nothing about Rose; if you had not already been told that
she slept on the sitting-room davenport; that she was taken for granted
as the family drudge; that she was, in that household, merely an
intelligent machine that made beds, fried eggs, filled hot water bags,
you would get a characterization of her from this: She was the sort of
person who never has a closet or bureau drawer all her own. Her few and
negligible garments hung apologetically in obscure corners of closets
dedicated to her sister's wardrobe or her brother's, or her spr