The Second Generation | Page 5

mother and I had been content," said Hiram, "you and Delia
would be looking for places in the canning factory." The remark was
doubly startling--for the repressed energy of its sarcasm, and because,
as a rule, Hiram never joined in the discussions in the family circle.
They were at the table, all except Mrs. Ranger. She had disappeared in
the direction of the kitchen and presently reappeared bearing a soup
tureen, which she set down before her husband. "I don't dare ask Mary
to wait on the table," said she. "If I did, she's just in the humor to up
and light out, too; and your mother's got no hankering for hanging over
a hot stove in this weather."
She transferred the pile of soup plates from the sideboard and seated

herself. Her husband poured the soup, and the plates were passed from
hand to hand until all were served. "If the Sandyses could see us now,
Del," said Arthur.
"Or the Whitneys," suggested Adelaide, and both laughed as people
laugh when they think the joke, or the best part of it, is a secret between
themselves.
Nothing more was said until the soup was finished and Mrs. Ranger
rose and began to remove the dishes. Adelaide, gazing at the table, her
thoughts far away, became uneasy, stirred, looked up; she saw that the
cause of her uneasiness was the eyes of her father fixed steadily upon
her in a look which she could not immediately interpret. When he saw
that he had her attention, he glanced significantly toward her mother,
waiting upon them. "If the Sandyses or the Whitneys could see us
_now_!" he said.
She reddened, pushed back her chair, and sprang up. "Oh, I never
thought!" she exclaimed. "Sit down, mother, and let me do that. You
and father have got us into awful bad ways, always indulging us and
waiting on us."
"You let me alone," replied her mother. "I'm used to it. I did my own
work for fifteen years after we were married, and I'd have been doing it
yet if your father hadn't just gone out and got a girl and brought her in
and set her to work. No; sit down, Del. You don't know anything about
work. I didn't bring you up to be a household drudge."
But Del was on her way to the kitchen, whence she presently
reappeared with a platter and a vegetable dish. Down the front of her
skirt was a streak of grease. "There!" exclaimed Mrs. Ranger, coloring
high with exasperation, "your dress is spoiled! I don't believe I can take
it out of that kind of goods without leaving a spot. Hiram, I do wish
you wouldn't meddle with the children! It seems to me you've got
enough to do to 'tend your own affairs at the mill."
This was unanswerable, or so it seemed to her husband. Once more he
felt in the wrong, when he knew that, somehow, he was in the right.

But Adelaide was laughing and going forward gracefully with her
duties as waitress. "It's nothing," she said; "the stain will come out; and,
if it doesn't, there's no harm done. The dress is an old thing. I've worn it
until everybody's sick of the sight of it."
Mrs. Ranger now took her turn at looking disapproval. She exclaimed:
"Why, the dress is as good as new; much too good to travel in. You
ought to have worn a linen duster over it on the train."
At this even Hiram showed keen amusement, and Mrs. Ranger herself
joined in the laugh. "Well, it was a good, sensible fashion, anyhow,"
said she.
Instead of hurrying through dinner to get back to his work with the one
o'clock whistle, Hiram Ranger lingered on, much to the astonishment of
his family. When the faint sound of the whistles of the distant factories
was borne to them through the open windows, Mrs. Ranger cried,
"You'll be late, father."
"I'm in no hurry to-day," said Ranger, rousing from the seeming
abstraction in which he passed most of his time with his assembled
family. After dinner he seated himself on the front porch. Adelaide
came up behind and put her arm round his neck. "You're not feeling
well, daddy?"
"Not extra," he answered. "But it's nothing to bother about. I thought I'd
rest a few minutes." He patted her in shy expression of gratitude for her
little attention. It is not strange that Del overvalued the merit of these
trivial attentions of hers when they were valued thus high by her father,
who longed for proofs of affection and, because of his shyness and
silence, got few.
"Hey, Del! Hurry up! Get into your hat and dust-coat!" was now heard,
in Arthur's voice, from the drive to the left