So we lounged in the large and pleasant parlor, the broad river before us, rimmed with starry lamps, sparkling everywhere with the lights of tiny pleasure craft, and occasionally the blaze and wash of larger boats. I had a sense of pleasant well-being. I had eaten heartily, very heartily, yet was not oppressed. My new-found family pleased me well. The quiet room was beautiful in color and proportion, and as my eyes wandered idly over it I noted how few in number and how harmonious were its contents giving a sense of peace and spaciousness.
The air was sweet—I did not notice then, as I did later, that the whole city was sweet-aired now; at least by comparison with what cities used to be. From somewhere came the sound of soft music, grateful to the ear. I stretched myself luxuriously with:
"Now, then, Nellie—let her go—'the women woke up.'"
"Some women were waking up tremendously, before you left, John Robertson, only I dare say you never noticed it. They just kept on, faster and faster, till they all did—about all. There are some Dodos left, even yet, but they don't count—discredited grandmothers!"
"And, being awake?" I gently suggested.
"And being awake, they——" She paused for an instant, seeking an expression, and Jerrold's smooth bass voice put in, "They saw their duty and they did it."
"Exactly," his mother agreed, with a proudly loving glance at him; "that's just what they did! And in regard to the food business, they recognized at last that it was their duty to feed the world—and that it was miserably done! So they took hold."
"Now, mother, this is my specialty," Hallie interposed.
"When a person can only talk about one thing, why oppose them?" murmured Jerrold. But she quite ignored him, and reopened her discussion.
"We—that is, most of the women and some of the men—began to seriously study the food question, both from a hygienic and an economic standpoint. I can't tell you that thirty years' work in a minute. Uncle John, but here's the way we manage it now: We have learned very definitely what people ought not to eat, and it is not only a punishable, but a punished offense to sell improper food stuffs."