Norma's friends; a story of talents

Contents

I. One Day in Mat - - - - 11

II. Betty Decides on a Caeeer - 30

III. The Mysterious Black Box - 49

Chapter I

The schoolroom was full of sunshine, for the windows faced the south, and it was nearly three o’clock on a glorious May day.

“ Shall we have the shades drawn? Any one object to the sun? ” Miss Rice asked, looking down the rows of those nearest the windows.

“No! No! No!” The “ noes ” seemed to continue for a full minute. In May, sunshine is too precious to be denied admittance. Later in the summer one may, perhaps, draw a shade, but not in May, no matter how glaring the sun¬ light.

“ All right! ” Miss Rice, a faded but sweet¬ looking blonde, smiled, then turned briskly to Joseph Campagna. “ You may read, Joseph! ”

Unwillingly Joseph, a shy little Italian, dragged himself from his seat, buttoned his coat to hide a none-too-clean shirt, and looked intently at the page, as if it would read itself, if given time.

Norma St. Clair squirmed. She had hoped Joseph would not have to read to-day.

“ These men were dependent for their sub—

sub-” Joe stopped and looked helplessly

at Miss Rice.

“ His eyes are just like a nice big dog’s,” Norma thought, “ always pleading for kind¬ ness.” Her serious brown eyes were melting with pity.

“ Subsistence,” Miss Rice prompted. “Joseph, surely a big boy in eighth grade should be able to say that word.” She sighed in despair. It was hard to listen to Joseph’s reading.

“ Subsistence,” Joseph mumbled, his head lowering behind the history book used for read¬ ing lessons,—“ on the tropical fruit of the island they had discovered,” he brought out slowly.

Norma felt her own cheeks burning at the rebuke which Joseph had suffered. Poor

Joseph! He looked so pathetic, and felt so embarrassed when corrected. Norma could not see why Miss Rice never appeared to notice it; she was kind enough, but had no patience with Joe’s slow reading. It made Norma squirm, too, but chiefly out of pity, and only partly because it was tiresome to listen.

“ If they’d just let him alone,” Norma thought, twisting a tight dark curl in her dis¬ tress, ‘‘ and not try to teach him to read swiftly and with expression. He can’t, anyway. Poor Joseph! ” She glanced at the Hiawatha calendar. A little over two weeks until Flag Day, when Joseph would have an appropriate drawing on the board.

‘‘ Get ready for painting lesson,” Miss Rice commanded, and the history books used for reading disappeared as if by magic, with a series of little soft thuds as they dropped into place. When books were put away promptly, it meant the next lesson was a welcome one.

There was always a special stir on Friday afternoon just before painting lesson. It was the last lesson on the last day of the week, and was considered a treat because it only came once a week, and because everybody loved to daub in paints.

Glancing over at Joseph with the tiny smile she always wore when she looked at him, Norma saw that he was sitting very straight, almost smiling. He had forgotten the read¬ ing lesson and the shirt he tried to hide because Miss Rice had spoken once, before the whole class, of his untidiness.

The door opened, and Miss Jameson, the lively little painting-teacher, in her inevitable green dress, stepped in. One day she had come all dressed up for some affair,—and the new dress had been green, too. Norma and her best friend, Elaine McDonald, had been disappointed. “ I wonder if it’s because she told us once that green is nature’s color and goes with anything? ” Norma had asked, and Elaine had agreed that that was probably the reason.

In Miss Jameson’s hand were three pussy¬ willows and two yellow daffodils. “Aren’t they pretty? ” she inquired with a smile, hold¬ ing them up. “ Who knows why they’re so lovely together? ”

Instantly Joseph’s hand shot up. “ Because the grey and brown are neutrals, and the yel¬ low is so bright,” he offered.

“ You remembered about the neutral colors, didn’t you, Joseph? Joseph doesn’t forget things,” she told the class, nodding her head with satisfaction, as much as to say, “ I told you so.”

This time Joseph flushed with pleasure, and looked about shyly, unaccustomed to being the object of so much approval. As his eyes met Norma’s, he smiled. Miss Jameson had re¬ membered his name, and she didn’t remember many names—couldn’t, with a new class every half-hour, and all the different schools to teach. Both Joseph and Norma knew that she had remembered his name because he was one of her best pupils.

Elaine passed out the tin paint-boxes and filled the tiny cups with water.

Turning to the blackboard. Miss Jameson tried the little bouquet, first alone, then with white paper back of it. The white paper made the pussies stand out better, the class decided.

“ How large can you make them on your paper? ” Miss Jameson asked. “ Their nat¬ ural size? ”

“ About one - fourth,” Joseph answered promptly.

“ Right,” Miss Jameson approved, “ because the pussy-willows are long.” She drew them, on the proper scale, beside the* bouquet which she had pinned on the blackboard molding, gave a few instructions concerning the mixing of colors and shading, and everything grew still.

If Joseph painted with his tongue in his cheek, the habit did not adversely affect his work.

Though it looked so easy to make three brown stems for the pussies, tack on the soft little grey ears, then make two green stems and the golden cup of the daffodils, Norma sur¬ veyed her work ruefully when it was finished. “ If only there had been time to do it over! ” she thought. “ It’s messy.”

“ Pass in your work,” Miss Rice said, taking charge again. ‘‘ The papers will be marked, and you may have them Monday. Get ready for dismissal,” she added, and there was an instant of shuffling, then an almost electric silence, as if all were ready to spring when she should speak, as indeed they were, for it was May, and there was an inviting outdoors just the other side of those four walls.

The class filed out in order, but, on reaching the street, rent the air with their shrieks. Everybody was calling or talking or yelling, just because it was good to be alive, and free, and out in the air of a May day.

“Look, Elaine!” Norma rejoiced, holding her friend back by the elbow. “ Here’s a cater¬ pillar, and there’s a little dust on the sidewalk. Isn’t it nice to have dust on the sidewalk again, instead of snow? ”

Elaine laughed in agreement. “ M-m-m, it’s good to get out. Less than a month until vacation. S’pose we’ll both pass all the exams. Norm? Wouldn’t it be terrible if one of us didn’t? ” she inquired, making a tragic face.

“ Silly! You know we shall. We always have,” Norma reminded cheerfully, if a trifle illogically.

“ Oh! You’re smart. I didn’t mean you/*

Elaine amended hastily. “ You’re good in everything.”

“ Not in painting. Did you see that daub I made? Wasn’t it awful? There, I’m saying ‘ awful ’ again, and Mother says I must not say it so often, or I won’t be able to talk properly.

“Oh, Elaine!” Norma exclaimed on in¬ spiration. “ Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to go to the classes where we’re doing the best work? I get so tired of sitting there, counting windows, when things are repeated over and over again. I wish we could pass in one subject at a time, instead of all to¬ gether! ”

“You would have been in high-school English long ago,” Elaine suggested loyally.

“And Joseph would have been doing high-school painting and drawing and writing,” Norma added, catching the spirit of the school reform they were instituting. “ I heard Miss Jameson tell Miss Rice that Joseph’s writing was like copper-plate engraving. Wouldn’t it be grand if we could go ahead as fast as we’re able, instead of having everybody wait for everybody else? I believe every one would pass in something/’

“We shouldn’t be together so much,” Elaine objected cautiously, “ but we shouldn’t have to sit still so long, waiting for the whole class to learn. I don’t see why the bright ones and the dumb ones are all put in one class.”

They walked along slowly, arms about each other’s waists, Norma’s brown curls close to Elaine’s honey-colored, fluffy, bobbed head, until they reached the street on which Norma lived, an old street in an old town, its large trees, large yards, and wide-open verandas testifying to its age.

“ Come over to my house, Norma,” Elaine asked coaxingly.

“ Have to go home first. I’ll see if I can. ’Bye.”

“ Face tag! ” Elaine responded, and was gone.

Reluctantly Norma turned up the walk to her very dignified home of grey stone, set back from the street. It was really too nice a day to go in, even for a minute, but that was the rule—^home first after school.

“ Hello, Daughter,’’ her mother greeted, smiling at Norma’s slow steps. ‘‘ Got spring fever? You look as if you didn’t want to come in.”

Mrs. St. Clair, in her high-back chair by the window, laid down a magazine,—one of the “ grown-up ” ones that Norma never read— no pictures in it, ever. “ What did you do in school to-day? ”

“Painted. It’s Friday, you know, and Joseph painted the most beautiful pussy¬ willows and daffodils. You just ought to see them. Mother! You’d be surprised.” She looked about the room. “ It’s better than any of the paintings we have,” she added enthu¬ siastically, warming to her task of giving Joseph his due.

“ I think, from what you tell me, that he must be another Michael Angelo,” her mother said seriously. “ Michael was one of the best ever, you know,—and Italian, too,” she added quickly, as Norma’s lips framed themselves for a question.

“ Do you think so, Mother? ” Norma asked, frowning in the effort to grasp the significance, and never once doubting her mother’s sincerity.

“ It’s possible,” Mrs. St. Clair assured her pleasantly, and, because the subject did not seem so important to her as it did to Norma, who felt an intense pity for the unhappy Italian boy, changed the topic of conversation. “ I see, by the way you stand there, that you are thinking of going over to Elaine’s or Betty’s. You might get me some straw¬ berries. They’re an extravagance, but it’s just the sort of day for strawberry shortcake, and Katy hinted that she would like to make one.”

‘‘ All right,” Norma agreed, and departed to her room on a mysterious errand.

She closed her door, took from the little maple desk which had been a present on her tenth birthday, a sheet of note-paper, and wrote:

“ You will probably be another Michael Angelo. Some one who knows said so.”

Forgetting that an unsigned note was in bad taste, Norma omitted the signature, folded the note, concealed it in her pocket, and started off with the money her mother gave her for straw¬ berries. Joseph usually hung around his uncle’s fruit store.

“Yoo-hoo!” the girl called when she had reached the yellow brick house, in the block around the corner, where Elaine lived.

At the familiar call, Elaine bounded out.

“ I’m going to the fruit store. Walk down with me? ” Norma invited.

Elaine did the talking, while Norma won¬ dered whether Joseph would be in the fruit store on a nice day like this, when there were so many attractions outside. Then, too, there was the problem of getting the note to Joseph without Elaine’s seeing it. Of course it was not anything to be ashamed of, but it was just for Joseph, and would not be an easy thing to explain, even to Elaine.

Once when Norma had talked of Joseph at home, her father had said, “ Tie will probably grow up and dig ditches.” Norma had worried ever since, for her father must know what he was talking about. Joseph must not dig ditches; he must be an artist. People did not understand how important that was. Joseph liked pretty things. Ugh! Fancy his working in a horrid ugly sewer, digging clay that would stick to his feet, and looking ashamed when acquaintances passed!

When Miss Rice was cross with him, Norma wanted to say: “ Please don’t hurt his feelings. It’s so easy to hurt Joseph’s feelings.” But of course she could not say anything; people did not do such things. The class would laugh, and Miss Rice would stare. It was not like scolding Charlie Hall; he just laughed— had no feelings, Norma guessed.

With vast relief, Norma saw that Joseph was at the store. Some of his paintings and drawings were on the wall, probably because he had more samples of his work than his own small home would accommodate.

Instinctively Norma picked out the reddest strawberries, then wandered about while they were being wrapped, trying to get away from Elaine and near Joseph. She could not get the note into his hand, for Elaine had looked around, but Norma managed to drop it, and

Joseph saw it fall and caught Norma’s mean¬ ing look.

“ Come on, Elaine,” she called happily, ‘‘ let’s hurry, so we can walk to the park.” Oh, what a relief to get rid of that note! She wished she might have seen Joseph’s face when he read it. He would read very slowly, and then would look pleased, like a dog when it is petted,—as he did when Miss Jameson praised his work before the class. She fell to wonder¬ ing whether he would know who Michael Angelo was—but of course he would, an Italian 1

Over Norma’s desk at home was a framed picture—the best thing he ever had done. Joseph had sent it on Valentine’s day, care¬ fully wrapped in sheets of cheap tablet paper. It was her own likeness; she was wearing a red cape, her rain cape, and Joseph had made her look like Little Red Riding Hood. Norma was flattered beyond words. She had framed the picture, and Avished she might tell him so, but they never had spoken, never held any con¬ versation. SomehoAv their bond of sympathy and admiration did not call for words.

‘‘ Let’s take the berries home, and then walk down to the river, Elaine,” Norma suggested, and Elaine readily assented.

On the way to the park which lay along the river, they found a gutter stopped with soft mud, and, taking long sticks, cleared it out, enjoying the rush of water into the opening they had made.

“ They’ve got the benches out again, Norma. Pretty soon we can have picnics,” Elaine re¬ minded gayly.

“ I wish you were my sister,” Norma re¬ turned. “ I hate going home alone. You have a brother and a sister, but I have to do my lessons alone, and haven’t anybody to talk to,—except grown-ups, of course, and they don’t always count.”

Later, when Norma’s wish for companion¬ ship was granted in a peculiar way, she thought of what she had told Elaine. For once, Elaine found no suitable answer ready for her friend, had no suggestion to make. She had always thought of Norma as self-sufficient, all-wise, not needing any one. Now, it ap¬ peared, Norma was lonely.

The two stood on the stone bridge that spanned the river at its narrowest point, and watched the water rush on, as if anxious either to see what lay just ahead, or to know its fate. Hand in hand they sauntered back home along the path that followed the willows, close to the river-bank.

“Violets!” Elaine exclaimed, darting into a clump of bushes. They picked the few stray flowers hidden there, and, as always with their treasures, divided them evenly.

“ We’ll look for more to-morrow,” Norma announced when they had picked all but the buds.

“ Look, Norma, quick!” Elaine ejaculated, pointing toward a rock in the river. “A rain¬ bow ! ”

There, in the spray that formed as the water struck the rock, was the “ rainbow of promise,” and the girls stopped to admire it before going home.

“ Was the park pretty, Norma? ” her mother asked, when Norma found her in the cheerful buff-and-white kitchen.

“ Beautiful, Mother. We found these-

Before she could finish, the telephone rang in¬ sistently.

“ Watch the biscuits in the oven, Norma,” her mother cautioned. “ Katy’s setting the table,—and they’re nearly ready.”

From the hall her voice drifted back to the kitchen. “Yes. Why! So suddenly! Yes, of course we’ll come on Sunday—sooner if you- All right!”

Mrs. St. Clair hung up the receiver, and re¬ turned to the kitchen with a peculiar expres¬ sion in her serious dark eyes.

“ Your father’s cousin Selina is dead,— pneumonia,” she said quietly.

“ Now what will Jimmy do? ” Norma asked in an awed voice, her first thought for the boy “ Aunt ” Selina had adopted.

Abstractedly Norma’s mother took the bis¬ cuits from the oven before answering. They were golden brown and delightfull}^ uneven on top; Katy never would make shortcake except as separate little sweetened biscuits.

“ Oh, undoubtedly his Uncle Arthur will take him now. His uncle’s wife did not want him when he was small, but now, of course.

he’s larger, and there’s no one else to take him. Aunt Selina has been good to him; made her own slender income do for both of them.”

“ Am I going Sunday? ” Norma queried, holding a full cream-pitcher in both hands.

“ If you care to,” her mother replied. “ Probably your father will drive.”

There was a rumbling sound in the drive¬ way, and, before the horn sounded, Norma was out of the kitchen and had jumped on the running-board. Mr. St. Clair, blond and contented-looking, entered, swinging Norma.

“ Tomboys—both of you,” Mrs. St. Clair reproved as they entered together.

“ This is all the exercise Father gets, except golf,” Norma pointed out, “ and he would have lost his figure long ago if it hadn’t been for swinging me.”

They were seated at the table and Katy had served them, before Mrs. St. Clair told the news she had just received from Portland.

“ I suppose his Uncle Arthur will take Jimmy? ” Mr. St. Clair questioned, laying down his fork. He looked at his wife, as if she could decide that point readily.

‘‘ I don’t know,” Norma’s mother answered slowly. She looked out the window, across the lawn which was turning a vivid green. “ I don’t know,” she repeated.

A sudden hope thrilled Norma, but she did not voice it until the next day.

“ I suppose,” Mrs. St. Clair added with a smile which Norma did not understand, ‘‘ it will depend on his Aunt Frances—and what’s in the black box.”

CHAPTER II ‘‘ Look at that tomboy! ”

Simultaneously, Norma and Elaine, on their way to Betty Haley’s, turned to the direction in which the woman was looking, though she was not addressing them.

“ She means Betty,” Norma whispered in¬ dignantly. ‘‘ She’s doing stunts again—fall¬ ing off the roof, or something cute.”

Elaine giggled at Norma’s shrewd guess, for the lively Betty seldom remained long in a state of equilibrium. “ It was that cranky Mrs. Baxter. She’s always criticising—even thinks girls shouldn’t play basketball. She doesn’t know how nice Betty is; there’s always fun where she is, and she’s good to every one.”

The girls crossed the street and entered the somewhat disreputable yard surrounding the Haleys’ rambling house, that resembled a fussy brown hen in a straw nest. A neglected ‘‘ For

Sale ” sign had been up so long it seemed a part of the house, for no one ever paid any attention to it.

“ Hello, girls! ” was Betty’s greeting from the roof of the garage. “ Glad you came. I’m fixing the roof; George just wouldn’t, and if we asked the landlord, he’d raise the rent, so I’m doing it. I don’t know what my mother would do without me.” All Betty’s strong teeth showed when she smiled; her freckles were in evidence at all times.

A few years back Norma had thought the freckles were caused by chewing gum, and had begged her mother for a similar privilege. In the girl’s mind, Betty’s freckles, her popu¬ larity, and her gum had somehow been hope¬ lessly confounded as inseparable facts—cause and effect—and all desirable. If Betty chewed gum and had freckles, it must be the thing to do. In Norma’s youthful mind, too, had been a fixed idea that Betty was beautiful, in spite of green-grey eyes and a too-generous nose.

“ I don’t see how you can stand up on that roof, Betty,” Norma exclaimed, looking up with fear and admiration in her eyes.

“ It hardly slopes at all. IVe been up on top of the house,” Betty stated, not boastingly, for it was too much a matter of course.

“ Let’s play basketball,” Elaine suggested, “ unless you’re too busy, Betty. Does Ernest mind if we use the ball? ”

“No; we can play a while. I was going over to see Carma, but not till later this after¬ noon,” she finished doubtfully.

Norma dreaded the “ Carma spells,” as she called them, when Betty, who was now in her first year in high school, refused to play with “ children,” which term included Norma and Elaine, who were “ only ” in eighth grade. At such times, Betty pinned up her hair, wore her longest dresses, nodded briefly to the “ chil¬ dren,” and devoted herself to Carma, who was a sophomore and discussed such matters as boys, manicuring, and styles in hairdressing. The spells would last a while, then Betty’s hair would be unpinned, her short dresses rein¬ stated, and Betty would be “ herself.” And, oh, what a relief to her two younger chums! For when Betty was leader, there was action. “ Why do you bother with Carma Hartland? ’’ Elaine asked plaintively. “ You know you can have more fun with us.”

“ I’m older than you are, you know,” Betty reminded, frowning dreamily. “ I can’t play kid games. I’ll soon be grown up.”

“ Mother says when we’re grown up, we’re grown up a long, long time, but we’re only children for a while,” Norma offered hope¬ fully.

“ I can’t help growing up,” Betty replied with the dignity she never could quite forget. “ But I’ll play basketball,—even college girls do that. Come on! ” and she dropped grace¬ fully from the roof of the garage and led the way to the gymnasium within what had been a barn until a disreputable car found shelter there.

Betty was herself.

“ We’ll take turns making baskets, then we’ll practise passing. You first, Norma,” she directed, tossing the ball to Norma, who leaped awkwardly and missed it.

“ Aim carefully. Hold the ball straight in your two hands, and keep your eye on the basket. Throw it high enough and hard enough to carry it above the basket so it will drop in.”

In spite of Betty’s explicit directions, her friend missed.

“ Take two more turns. We’ll each take three,” Betty encouraged.

Twice again the girl missed, and Elaine did no better.

Betty made two baskets out of three. “ It takes a lot of practice,” she explained. “ I’m going to try for the high-school team next year; this year I wasn’t allowed to, because freshmen aren’t permitted on any of the teams.”

For twenty minutes they played, Norma and Elaine awkwardly, Betty more skillfully, patiently explaining to the girls wherein they failed.

A sudden clanging outside, and Betty dropped the ball which she had been about to pass to Norma. “A fire! Let’s go, girls!”

Nothing loath, they hurried to the street, just as the fire-engine approached.

“ Oh, Betty! Look, look, look! Adele Baxter is coming across. Stop, Adele, stop! ” Elaine called.

But Adele, aged three, had dropped an apple and was bent on rescuing it. The noise of the engine and the clanging of the bell con¬ fused her. The driver applied his brakes in time to avoid striking her, but the huge truck swung around until the rear end threatened her, and the thoroughly frightened child was running directly in its path. It seemed in¬ evitable that the child would be caught under the rear wheel. Then, like a flash, Betty darted out, reached up to the ladder with her right hand, and, with her left, caught Adele by the neck of her dress and held her until the machine came to a stop.

A crowd had appeared by that time, as ants appear from the ground when their home is threatened; a few hasty words, partly thanks to Betty, partly warning to the child, and the firemen were on their way.

Mrs. Baxter, coming out of the store, her face drawn with terror, pushed through the crowd and caught up Adele.

“ What happened? ” she asked, her voice un¬ steady, her eyes wild. ‘‘ Some one told me Adele was hurt? She’s—she’s all right? ”

“ You can thank Betty Haley for that. Those dumb firemen just sat there, and waited for the youngster to go under the wheels,” a loquacious barber offered. “ Betty got out there quicker than I can tell it, hung onto the ladder with one hand and grabbed the young¬ ster with the other. She hung on until the en¬ gine stopped skidding. I call that nerve. Too many of the girls is brung up-”

But no one was listening, for every one was talking, except Mrs. Baxter, who was too much concerned, and Adele, who was dazed. Mrs. Baxter tried to thank Betty.

‘‘ Oh, it’s nothing! I climb around like a cat, anyway,” Betty deprecated. “ I do harder tricks than that every day.”

Reluctantly the crowd dispersed when there was no more to hear. By night, the story had improved wonderfully. There had been a ma¬ chine coming the other way. The child was bcTund to be hit by one. Betty had darted be¬ tween them. The truck was going full speed when it skidded. The driver had not seen the child at all. Adele had been dragged twenty feet, and was unconscious when Betty picked her up, just as a wheel was about to pass over her.

While the crowd was busy enlarging on the incident, Betty and her friends returned to the garage.

“ S’pose you’ll get a medal, Betty? ” Elaine queried solemnly.

“No! Just for that? I wasn’t afraid. I knew what I was doing,” Betty scoffed.

“ Nobody else did it. There wasn’t another second to spare,” Elaine insisted. “You are a hero—heroine,” she amended, “ whether you get a medal or not.”

“ Think I’d stand there and watch poor Mrs. Baxter’s only kiddie hurt or killed? ”

Norma and Elaine exchanged significant glances, for the words reminded them of Mrs. Baxter’s “Tomboy!” uttered in scornful tones.

They were thinking much the same things,— the tomboy had a strong right arm to hold to the ladder, and a strong left to swing the child out of danger. She had thought and acted quickly—from practice and confidence. Betty could hang by her teeth from a trapeze,—or by her heels or her chin or her toes, for that matter.

Coming out of a reverie, Betty made an an¬ nouncement. “ I think I’ll be a gymnasium teacher.”

“ Why not start one this summer for chil¬ dren? You have the garage,” Norma sug¬ gested eagerly.

“ You could make money,” Elaine added with enthusiasm.

“ Betty! Betty! ” came a tired voice from the house.

“ Coming, Mother! ” Betty responded cheer¬ fully. Come on in with me, girls,” she begged. “ I want some one to talk to; I think Mother wants me to help her.”

The girls awaited no second invitation, for, like every normal human being that ever lived, they loved to get into other people’s houses,— other homes; to experience the new atmosphere that is peculiar to every home, the “ feel ” of a house. Some are warm and friendly; some cold, neat, precise, and unemotional; others are neat, orderly and yet inviting, lacking the touch-me-not look of the too precise house.

There is the disorder that means life and ac¬ tion ; the disorder that means carelessness. The kind of books lying about tell a whole story in themselves,—trashy stuff for melodramatic minds, wholesome books and magazines that indicate a live interest in current affairs, heavy solemn ones that announce the presence of the thinker and dreamer. There is the combina¬ tion of the two latter that typifies the highest class—the aggressive thinker, active, abreast of the times.

The atmosphere in some homes seems thin; in the Haley house it fairly tingled with the in¬ terests of five young people, of whom Betty was the youngest.

“ I wish you’d peel some of these vegetables, Betty. I’m going to order my supplies for to-morrow. Come in, girls,” she added hos¬ pitably, as the girls hesitated.

In the big brown kitchen Betty pulled for¬ ward chairs for her friends, and seated herself on a brown stool before the ugly iron sink.

“ Put an apron on,” Mrs. Haley admonished, smoothing down her faded locks with a workroughened hand.