“Well, I’ll take the cake,” said Helen. “I saw some sour milk in the ice-box, and spice-cake is the cheapest cake I know.”
“I’ll take the meat,” said Winona. “There must be something I can do with a beautiful piece of steak like that, even if it is cooked.”
Adelaide had not said anything.
“That leaves the salad for you, Adelaide,” said Mrs. Bryan cheerfully. “Louise, you’d better see about some fruit for supper, for your potatoes won’t take you long.”
Then Mrs. Bryan introduced them to the ways of the gas-range, and went back to lie in wait for her Blue Birds.
Helen collected spice and molasses and flour and shortening around her corner of the table, and went systematically to work on her spice-cake.
“It looks like gingerbread,” said Winona, getting the bread-crumb jar.
“It is, really, only it hasn’t much ginger in,” explained Helen. “Lots of people don’t like ginger. What are you going to do with your steak, Winnie?”
“Frame it!” advised Louise frivolously. “They say they have a four-pound steak under glass at the Metropolitan Museum, as a relic of the days when each family had at least one in a lifetime.”
“If you want to frame your share of it you may,” said Winona. “I’m going to eat mine.”