“Nothing special happened to-day, then?” asked Mr. Knapp in a cheerful voice, looking over at the erect, well-coifed house-mother.
“Just the usual things,” answered Mrs. Knapp, reaching out to push Henry’s plate a little nearer to him. “I haven’t been out anywhere, and nobody has been in. Stephen, don’t eat so fast. Mattie telephoned. Their new car has come. Henry, do sit up straighter. You’ll be positively hunchbacked if you keep stooping over so.”
At the mention of Aunt Mattie and the new car, a self-conscious silence dropped over the older children and their father. They looked down at their plates.
“Helen, did you put salt on your potatoes?” asked her mother. “I don’t put in as much as we like, because the doctor says Henry shouldn’t eat things very salt.”
“I put some on,” said Helen.
“Enough?” asked her mother doubtfully. “You know it takes a lot for potatoes.”
Helen tasted her potatoes, as though she had not till then thought about them. “Yes, there’s enough,” she said.
“Let me taste them,” said her mother, holding out her hand for the plate. After she had tasted them she said, “Why, there’s not nearly enough, they’re perfectly flat. Here, give me that salt-cellar.” She added the salt, tasted the potatoes again and pushed the plate back to Helen, who went on eating with small mouthfuls, chewing conscientiously.
There was another silence.
Mr. Knapp helped himself to another biscuit, and said as he spread it with butter, “Aren’t these biscuits simply great! You’d never know, by the taste, they were good for you, would you?”