“Let me see if I can work it out alone,” said Adelaide.
She washed the lettuce and set it on the individual salad plates Helen found for her. Then she began to combine peas and beets and celery quite as if she knew how.
Winona watched her for a minute, then went over to see what Louise was doing. While she had been helping Adelaide Louise’s syrup had cooked enough to have the quartered apples dropped into it, and now it was bubbling on the back of the stove. Just as Winona came over Louise took off the apples, cooked through, but not to the point of losing their shape, and put them outdoors to cool. Then she turned her attention to the baked potatoes of yesterday.
She had heated them through, and now she cut off the tops and scooped out the inside, and was mixing it with milk and butter and a little onion, and beating it till it was creamy.
“They’re harder to do than if they were fresh,” she said, pounding vigorously, “but I guess they’ll come out all right, when they’ve been browned a minute.”
“They’ll be browned just about the time my scalloped meat’s done,” responded Winona, dropping to her knees before the oven. “Oh, Helen, come take out your cake! It’s all done—I’ve tried it with a straw.”
“Oh, it isn’t burned, is it?” cried Helen, dashing in.
It wasn’t. She put it on the shelf over the range, to keep warm, and headed a party bound upstairs to tidy up.
“You didn’t set places for those little taggers?” called Louise to Helen on the way up.
“Not at our table,” said Helen.