“Isn’t it great?” Nancy remarked, referring, of course, to the success of the class. “And for a laggard, an idler and one who positively hated the very letters that spelled cooking, I think I’m doing pretty well myself. I made a fudge cake yesterday and mother carried it out to set before the library ladies, can you imagine that? A cake that I made! After my heartbreaking experience with the ungreased pans!”
It was very early in the afternoon and Ruth, with Nancy, was putting the class room in order. She had remained over to lunch as she often did, and the two chums found pleasure in arranging the white covered tables, the shining pans, the numbered spoons and other utensils. It was all so much pleasanter than doing anything in an ordinary kitchen.
The gas range, that was sent in to Miss Manners as a demonstrator’s sample, was majestically white and really quite attractive, if such an article can be called attractive, and just how Nancy hovered rather lovingly over it, polishing with the very softest, whitest cloth the impeccable, enameled surface.
Ruth had been finishing a little memorandum in her oilcloth covered book. She laid the book down now and strolled over to Nancy. In their white aprons and white caps, Nancy and Ruth looked too picturesque to be passed by without compliment.
Ruth wound her arm around Nancy’s shoulder. “I wonder,” she said, “why we sometimes think that all play is more fun?”
“I never did,” replied Nancy, innocently. “My trouble always has been in finding enough different things to do.” She looked rather pathetically into the soft gray eyes that were caressing her own darker orbs. There was no impulsive hugging, nor other ordinary demonstrations of affections dear to the average emotional girls, for Nancy was not given to extremes, nor was Ruth addicted to such flagrant sentiment.
The two girls were especially happy just now. Nancy was accomplishing more, much more, than she had ever hoped to do, with her little shop that first brought real financial help to her mother, and was now doing as much for Miss Manners. Besides all this, it was giving the girls themselves a very useful, as well as enjoyable, summer diversion. Ruth, although a new friend of Nancy’s, had become a very fond friend indeed, for the frank, original and genuine qualities of Nancy were unmistakable in their sincerity, and it was easy enough for any girl to love her—if she could but get near enough to her to know her.
“And you don’t think it shows a weakness to be so changeable?” Nancy asked Ruth. “I just can’t seem to be happy unless I’m planning something new.”
“Why, that’s—that’s a sign of originality,” replied Ruth, smoothing Nancy’s cap on her dark hair. “Some day you’ll do something wonderful—”
“About the girls,” Nancy interrupted. “Don’t you think we were fortunate to get the Riker girls to join the class? They seem to represent the smart set at Upper Crust Hill, and they brought at least five others along.”