Ma being ready, they sat, and the meal progressed, notwithstanding the fact that Cora, reappearing, shorn of her modish coiffure, was in no mood for merry-making.
"I hate my hair this way!" she announced for the benefit of whom it might concern.
"Ringlets is one thing, stringlets is another," said Martha, unreproachfully. "At least, now you don't look like somebody'd been woolin' the head of you. Have some stew?"
"No, I hate the very name o' stew."
"Call it rag-goo, then, same's Miss Claire's grand chef-cook does. Have some, anyhow, for luck. Here, cheer up, Cora! When I was a kid, I was one o' nine childern, an' you can take it from me, we wasn't thinkin' half so much, in them days, what we'd eat as where we'd get it. When I was twelve—two years younger than you—I went to live out scullery-maid with Mrs. Underwood, God bless her! where my mother'd been cook before me. From that day, I never went hungry no more, nor the ones at home either. But I don't like to see my childern turn up their noses at good food. It ain't becomin'. Now, eat your rag-goo like a lady, an' we'll call it square. Say, Ma, you know what Sam an' me's goin' to do?"
Ma shook her head, after the fashion of a mild bovine chewing the meditative cud.
"We're goin' to play hookey. We're goin' to fly the coop, for a couple o' days, an' go back home, to New York. Sam's gotta—on business, an' I'm goin' ta, on pleasure."
The moment following Martha's announcement was one of intense silence. The children and Ma were too amazed to speak. The idea of Mother deserting, even for a few days, was hardly conceivable. Then, as the monstrousness of it began to percolate, there rose a chorus of protest.
"O—oh, mother-r! What'll we do?"
"I wanta go too!"