“Well, it’s the first real present I’ve ever made you, Joey. It sure won’t be the last! Hustle into the cedar room now, and get into the white one with the frills—the white ones are for Sunday school.”
I could say nothing. And as for Joey, he gathered the shirts in his arms and went away to the cedar room snivelling. Wanza and I were left to look into each other’s faces questioningly. “How is it with you, Wanza?” I asked, just as she put the query, “How do you get along, Mr. Dale?”
We both laughed, and the awkwardness of the situation was relieved.
“I miss you terribly, Wanza,” I confessed. “My sour dough bread turns to dust and ashes in my mouth.”
Her soft eyes were commiserating. “I’ll fetch you a good sweet loaf of my baking, now and then,” she volunteered quickly.
“And don’t drive by as you have been doing. Are you too busy to stop as you used to do, girl?” I asked.
“I’m busy, all right.” She lifted the cover from a small tin pail on the back of the stove, and sniffed with the air of a connoisseur at the yeast it contained. “That needs more sugar!”
“It needs doctoring,” I conceded ruefully. “I set it last night and it has not risen.”
“Has Joey been having his bath here?”
“Yes.”