“Oh yes, ma’am! We hoped some day you’d take that table. Kind of kept the view for you,” said Father, with panting gallantry, fairly falling over himself as he rushed across the floor to pull out their chairs and straighten the table-cloth.
Mrs. Carter paid no attention to him whatsoever. She drew a spectacle-case from her small hand-bag and set upon her beetling nose a huge pair of horn-rimmed eye-glasses. She picked up the menu-card as though she were delicately removing a bug—supposing there to be any bug so presumptuous as to crawl upon her smart tan suit. She raised her chin and held the card high.
“Uh, tea, lettuce sandwiches, cream-cheese sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, doughnuts, cinnamon toast,” she read off to her daughter.
So quickly that he started, she turned on Father and demanded, “What sort of tea have you, please?”
“Why, uh—just a minute and I’ll ask.”
Father bolted through the door into the large, clean, woodeny, old-fashioned kitchen, where Mother was wearily taking a batch of doughnuts out of the fat-kettle.
“Mother!” he exulted. “Mrs. Carter—she’s here!”
Mother dropped the doughnuts back into the kettle. The splashing fat must have burnt her, but beyond mutely wiping the grease from her hand, she paid no attention to it. She turned paper white. “Oh, Seth!” she groaned. Then, in agony, “After your going and getting them here, I haven’t a thing ready for them but lettuce sandwiches and fresh doughnuts.”
“Never mind. I’ll make them take those. Say, what kind of tea have we got now?”
“Oh, dear! we haven’t got a thing left but just—well, it’s just tea, mixed.”