She went straight from her little house to the big house of the Next-Door-Neighbor and rang the bell at the back entrance. A maid let her into the kitchen, and there was the Next-Door-Neighbor, and the two women who worked for her, and a daughter-in-law who had come to spend Christmas. The great range was glowing, and things were simmering, and things were stewing, and things were steaming, and things were baking, and things were boiling, and things were broiling, and there was the fragrance of a thousand delicious dishes in the air.
And the Next-Door-Neighbor said: “We are trying to get as much done as possible to-night. We are having twelve people for Christmas dinner to-morrow.”
And the Daughter-in-Law, who was all dressed up and had an apron tied about her, said in a sharp voice, “I can’t see why you don’t let your maids work for you.”
And the Next-Door-Neighbor said: “I have always worked. There is no excuse for laziness.”
And the Daughter-in-Law said: “I’m not lazy, if that’s what you mean. And we’ll never have any dinner if I have to cook it,” and away she went out of the kitchen with tears of rage in her eyes.
And the Next-Door-Neighbor said, “If she hadn’t gone when she did, I should have told her to go,” and there was rage in her eyes but no tears.
She took her hands out of the pan of breadcrumbs and sage, which she was mixing for the stuffing, and said to the Small Girl’s mother,
“Did you come to pay the rent?”
The Small Girl’s mother handed her the money, and the Next-Door-Neighbor went upstairs to write a receipt. Nobody asked the Small Girl’s mother to sit down, so she stood in the middle of the floor and sniffed the entrancing fragrances, and looked at the mountain of food which would have served her small family for a month.
While she waited, the Boy-Next-Door came in and he said, “Are you the Small Girl’s mother?”