He had the artistic temperament which his son inherited. Julia was like her mother who had died two years before her husband. Mrs. Barnes had been unimaginative and capable. It was because of her that Julia had married an architect, and was living in a snug apartment in Chicago, that Baldwin Junior had gone through college and had some months at an art school before the war came on, and that Jane, the youngest, had a sense of thrift, and an intensive experience in domestic economy.
As for the rest of her, Jane was twenty, slender as a Florentine page, and fairly pretty. She was in love with life and liked to talk about it. Young Baldwin said, indeed, with the frankness of a brother, that Jane ran on like a babbling brook.
She was “running on” this November morning, as she and young Baldwin ate breakfast together. Jane always got the breakfast. Sophy, a capable negro woman, came over later to help with the housework, and to put the six o’clock dinner on the table. But it was Jane who started the percolator, poached the eggs, and made the toast on the electric toaster, while young Baldwin read the Washington Post. He read bits out loud when he was in the mood. He was not always in the mood, and then Jane talked to him. He did not always listen, but that made no difference.
Jane had named the percolator “Philomel,” because of its purling harmonies.
“Don’t you love it, Baldy?”
Her brother, with one eye on the paper, was eating his grapefruit.
“Love what?”
“Philomel.”
“Silly stuff——”
“It isn’t. I like to hear it sing.”