"Oh, I am sorry," said Mrs. Brewster. "I don't believe we had better wait. You know it always takes you an hour to dress. Better luck next time, dearie! There are chops in the ice-box, and the potatoes and pudding are ready to cook, and there are some canned peas. You can fix a good dinner, and we will be home before long. Perhaps if you have time you had better pick up the sitting-room. I didn't feel in the mood for it this morning. It is an awful mess. Don't bother if you don't want to, however. Good-bye!"
Mabel hung up the receiver with an angry frown. Nothing was going right; nothing was starting as she had intended it. She dressed slowly, and ate bread and butter and sugar for dinner. The milkman had forgotten to leave the milk. She drank water. And she did not pick up the sitting-room.
Later, her mother and brother failing to appear, she went out for a walk. When she returned at half past five, she met her truant family descending from a big touring car. Some friends had picked them up and had taken them for a long ride.
Mrs. Brewster noted the bread crumbs on the kitchen table and the open sugar bowl. She smiled. Later they all sat down to a delicious hot supper, and Mabel cheered up enough to listen politely at least to the accounts of their dinner and ride that had followed.
But when according to her orders, Mabel went to writing the account of the day in her notebook, it did not sound interesting at all!
The next afternoon when Mabel came from school, having been detained half an hour on account of inattention, she found Frank busy mending the tears in his basketball suit by the simple method of drawing them up in a tight pucker.
"Where is mother?" demanded Mabel.
"Dunno," said Frank, squinting at his work.
"Well, I wonder where she is," said Mabel. "Rosanna Horton asked me to come over to supper tonight, and I want to wear that new dress mother is making for me. She said she would have it done today." She went into her mother's little sewing-room, and came back looking disappointed.
"It isn't finished at all!" she said. "I don't see where mother can be!"