And presently even the lost pleasure and the spoiled cake were soon forgotten in their discussion of Ted’s remarkable story.
CHAPTER XII
THE VIRTUE OF RESOLVE
But something had happened to Nancy. The cake failure represented to her much more than a simple episode, for it had suddenly summed up all the awful possibilities of untrained hands. It was well enough to make excuses, to claim business and even artistic talent, for Nancy could draw and color, and was among the best in her class as an art student, but the fact now bore down upon her with undisguised horror! She could not do what other girls could do. She could not even bake a cake.
“And just as mother so often told me,” she reflected bitterly, “it is not at all a question of preference but of simple, civilized living. What I don’t do and should do someone else must do, and that’s anything but fair play on my part,” Nancy sadly admitted.
“Aren’t you going to open the store, Nan?” Ted asked her. “There’s been someone knocking a long time and now they’re going away—”
“Oh, never mind,” she answered indifferently, “I’m going to get tea ready so mother won’t have to bother. She does it like an angel when I plead store business, but I guess, Ted, the old store—”
“Isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Ted helped her out rather willingly, for he had not, at any time, shared her enthusiasm in the little business venture.
Nancy sighed dramatically. She was feeling rather sorry for herself and that is always a symptom of wounded pride. It was the same day, in early evening, of the picnic and cake experience, and her crying spell still stirred its little moisture of hurt emotions. Ted couldn’t bear to see his sister cry, ever, and he was now all attention and sympathetic interest.
“I wish, Nan, you’d just sell out. The store would make a swell gym, and we scouts need a place just like that—”
“Ted Brandon! Do you think I would quit just because a thing is hard! Why, I should think you would remember how hard mother works,” she declared, in a sudden outburst of virtue. “And the harder it is the more reason to—to do it,” she floundered.