"Oh," said Mary, in swift penitence, "thank you, Mis' Winslow. After he comes, maybe. But these things now I don't mind doing. The real nuisance'll come afterwards, I s'pose."
Mis' Winslow smiled in soft triumph.
"Nuisance!" she said. "That's what I meant comes to you by having 'em. You don't think so much of the nuisance part as you did before."
"Then you don't look the thing in the face," said Mary, calmly. "That's all about that."
"Well," Mis' Winslow said pacifically, "when's he coming?"
"A week from Tuesday. A week from to-morrow," Mary told her.
Mis' Winslow looked at her intently, with the light of calculation in her narrowed eyes.
"A week from Tuesday," she said. "A week from Tuesday," she repeated. "A week from Tuesday!" she exclaimed. "Why, Mary Chavah. That's Christmas Eve."
It was some matter of recipes that was absorbing Mis' Bates and Mis' Moran when Mis' Winslow breathlessly returned to them. They were deep in tradition, and in method, its buttonhole relation. During the weary period when nutrition has been one of the two great problems the tremendous impulse that has nourished the world was alive in the faces of the two women, a kind of creative fire, such as had burned in Mary at the cutting of her pattern. Asparagus escalloped with toast crumbs and butter was for the moment symbol of all humanity's will to keep alive.
"Ladies," said Mis' Winslow, with no other preface, "what do you think? Mary Chavah's little boy is coming from Idaho with a tag on, and when do you s'pose he's going to get here? Christmas Eve."