When he appeared in the hall again he was accompanied by a singularly unattractive boy of eight with a colorless face and incredibly dirty hands.
"We hadn't time to fix up," Applebaum said with forced cheerfulness, endeavoring to make proper connections between a very shabby pair of trousers and a soiled shirt. "There, that's better."
"Come this way," Hertha called, and to the surprise of the others the boy followed her down the hall into her bedroom.
Getting some hot water, she helped him roll up his sleeves and then, handing him her soap, told him to wash.
At this point he shook his head vigorously. "I can't, Miss," he explained; "it would chap 'em. Yer don't wash yer hands in winter."
"Just try," she suggested.
With a great splash he plunged in his hands, found the warm water pleasant, the soap agreeably slippery; and while he scowled as he rubbed, under Hertha's silent supervision, he made a thorough job.
"Now, look," she said when he had finished with her towel.
The boy looked down and out beyond his coat-sleeves, where once there had been black, were now white, astonishingly white, hands. They gleamed against his dark trousers. Slowly a smile spread over his face as though he were welcoming back summer friends.
"Tom could never get a result like that," Hertha thought as they walked into the kitchen together. She placed the lad at Kathleen's left where he watched voraciously the carving of the deliciously browned turkey. He grabbed at the first plate, which, nevertheless, went on its way to Hertha. But when the second turned not to the left but to the right and landed in front of Applebaum, his anger rose.