"If you ask for my candid opinion," responded Mrs. Morton, "I think you are giving so much time and attention to the work of the U. S. C. that you aren't paying proper attention to the small matters of every day life that we must all meet."
"Oh, but, Mother, you approve of the U. S. C."
"Certainly I approve of it. I think it is fine in every way; but I don't believe in your becoming so absorbed in it that you forget your daily duties. Aunt Louise had to telephone to Roger to go over and start her furnace for her yesterday when the sharp snap came, and the Ethels have been rushing off in the morning without doing the small things to help Mary that are a part of their day's work."
"Oh, Mother, they're such little things! She can do them easily once in a while."
"Any one of your morning tasks is a small matter, but when none of them are done they mount up to a good deal for Mary. If there were some real necessity for making an extra bed Mary would do it without complaining, but when, as happened yesterday morning, neither of you Ethels made your bed, and Roger left towels thrown all over his floor, and not one of Helen's bureau drawers was shut tight, and Dicky upset a box of beads and went off to kindergarten without picking them up—don't you see that what meant but a few minutes' work for each one of you meant an hour's work for one person?"
"I'll bet Mary didn't mind," growled Roger.
"Mary is too loyal to say anything, but if your present careless habits should continue we should have to have an extra maid to wait on you, and you know very well that that is impossible."
"I'm sorry, Mother," said Roger penitently. "I'm sorry about the towels and about Aunt Louise and I'm sorry I growled. You're right, of course."
"I rather guess we've been led astray by being so successful with our team work in the club," said Helen thoughtfully. "We've found out that we can do all sorts of things well if we pull together and we've been forgetting to apply co-operation at home."
"Exactly," agreed Mrs. Morton. "And you've been so absorbed in the needs of people several thousand miles away that you overlook the needs of people beside you. What you've been doing to Mary is unkind; what Helen did to Fräulein this morning was unkind."