When the cake was frosted and standing white and beautiful in the window to dry she slipped up to the bath room, wiped up the floor and tidied it a bit. It needed a vigorous cleaning but she had no time to give it. Then she hurried down to shell the peas and scrape the potatoes. When they were on she would feel easier in her mind. There was a stalk of celery in the store room and a few English walnuts. The salad would look prettier if she diced the celery and stuffed the tomatoes with celery and nuts. She must try to get time. It wouldn’t take a minute. Then the lettuce must be got from the garden. It ought to be in salt water this instant.
The next hour was a wild whirl. It seemed, as she rushed from table to range and from refrigerator back to the kitchen, that she had been rushing, rushing, ever since she left home, and she was tired, oh, so tired.
The biscuits were in the oven and the potatoes and peas bubbling gaily on the stove, the chops were in the broiler and Joyce was trying to set the table, when Mrs. Powers returned with her guest. After taking her to the guest room upstairs she came languidly down to see how the dinner was getting on. She said no word of commendation, but a look of satisfaction dawned in her eyes as she saw the orderly row of salad plates, daintily and appetizingly arrayed on the kitchen side table, and caught a glimpse of the two cakes in the pantry window smooth and glistening in deep frosting. Joyce caught the look or perhaps she would not have been able to go on through the next trying hour.
“Mrs. Powers, I can’t find but one of those rose napkins you said you wanted to use. Could you tell me where else to look?” she asked as the lady returned to the diningroom.
“Why, I’m sure they are in the drawer,” said the lady sharply as if somehow Joyce must have lost them herself. “They’re always right there.” She came and looked herself.
“Well, I guess they didn’t get sent to the laundry,” she admitted at last reluctantly after a hasty slamming of sideboard drawers. “Oh, here they are. How tiresome! Well, you’ll just have to take them down to the laundry and rub them out. There’s no other way. The others simply aren’t fit. Here, take these. You’ll find the electric iron right down there and you can iron them dry.”
Joyce paused aghast.
“But the dinner,” she said. “Things will burn, and I’m afraid it won’t be on time if I wait to do that.”
“Well, you’ll have to manage somehow. I’m sure I don’t know what else you can do. We’ll have to have dinner late then I suppose, although Mr. Powers hates that. He always says never hire a person twice who can’t get meals on time. It’s the worst fault—”
But Joyce had seized the napkins and was already on her way down to the laundry, her lips set in a hard, determined little line. The School Board should never be able to say she couldn’t be on time, even if it was the School Board’s wife’s fault that she couldn’t be. She would win out and have dinner on time anyway.