Cricket assented; but after rummaging a while, asked Hilda where she supposed Mrs. Brummagen kept her table-cloths and napkins.
“In that cupboard drawer, probably,” said Hilda, trying to make the uneven chunks of bread balance on the two-tined steel fork which she had found.
“I don’t suppose we ought to look in her drawers, even if we do want a table-cloth. Well, I’ll just peek in. No; there’s nothing there but a dress of Mosina’s,” after a hasty “peek.”
“I can’t eat off that faded pink thing on the table,” said Hilda, with decision. “At least, I don’t believe I can,” she added, more doubtfully, as the empty place in her stomach began to protest against waiting much longer for something to put in it. “Ow! there goes the bread into the fire again!”
She prodded the scorched wedge of bread with the fork, and brought it up successfully. She was growing quite expert in rescuing the pieces and blowing off the ashes.
“Cricket, this bread is simply roasted, instead of toasted.”
“It does smell pretty scorchy,” said Cricket, looking at it anxiously. “We can’t waste it, though, for there isn’t much of it. Hilda, I can’t find a single thing to put on for a table-cloth, excepting a sheet. Wouldn’t you rather have the pink cloth? It looks clean, anyway. Probably her white cloths are all in the wash.”
“I’d eat it on the floor now,” said Hilda, with a decided change of base. “The bread’s done. Now for the herring.”
Cricket proceeded to set the table, by putting the knives and forks and the two plates on.
“There’s the table set. Looks sort of bare, though. What will you do with the herrings? Put them in the spider and let them frizzle?”