The Wall Between Part 5

"Drat old pictures!" she at last burst out angrily. "They'd ought to be burnt up--the whole lot of them! They always set you thinkin'."

CHAPTER IV

THE EPISODE OF THE EGGS

The next morning while Ellen stood at the kitchen table slicing bread for breakfast, Lucy, her figure girlish in a blue and white pinafore, appeared in the doorway.

"Good morning, Aunt Ellen," she said. "You will have to forgive me this once for being late. Everything was so still I didn't wake up. Your nice feather bed was too comfortable, I'm afraid. But it shan't happen again.

After this I mean to be prompt as the sun, for I'm going to be the one to get the breakfast. You must promise to let me do it. I'd love to. I am quite accustomed to getting up early, and after serving breakfast for twelve, breakfast for two looks like nothing at all." As she spoke she moved with buoyant step across the room to the table.

"Shan't I toast the bread?" she inquired.

"I ain't a-goin' to toast it," returned Ellen in a curt tone. "Hot bread an' melted b.u.t.ter's bad for folks, 'specially in the mornin'."

Lucy smiled. "It never hurts me," she replied.

"Nor me," put in her aunt quickly. "I don't give it a chance to. But whether or no, I don't have it. When you melt b.u.t.ter all up, you use twice as much, an' there ain't no use wastin' food."

"I never thought about the b.u.t.ter."

"Them as has the least in the world is the ones that generally toss the most money away," the elder woman observed.

The transient kindliness of the night before had vanished, giving place to her customary sharpness of tone. Lucy paid no heed to the innuendo.

"I might make an omelet while I'm waiting," she suggested pleasantly. "Dad used to think I made quite a nice one."

"I don't have eggs in the mornin', either," replied Ellen.

"Don't you like eggs?"

"I don't eat 'em."

"How funny! I always have an egg for breakfast."

"You won't here," came crisply from her aunt.

Lucy failed to catch the gist of the remark.

"Why, I thought you kept hens," she said innocently.

"I do."

"Oh, I see. They're not laying."

"Yes, they are. I get about four dozen eggs every day," retorted Ellen.

"But I sell 'em instead of eatin' 'em."

As comprehension dawned upon Lucy, she was silent.

"Folks don't need eggs in the mornin' anyway," continued Ellen, still on the defensive. "This stuffin' yourself with food is all habit. Anybody can get into the way of eatin' more 'n' more, an' not know where to stop.

Bread an' coffee an' oatmeal is all anybody needs for breakfast."

If she expected a reply from her niece, she was disappointed, for Lucy did not speak.

"When you can get sixty-six cents a dozen for eggs, it's no time to be eatin' 'em," Ellen continued irritably. "You ain't come to live with a Rockefeller, Miss."

Receiving no answer to the quip, she drew a chair to the table and sat down.

"You'd better come an' get your coffee while it's hot," she called to Lucy.

Slowly the girl approached the table and seated herself opposite her aunt.

The window confronting her framed a scene of rare beauty. The Webster farm stood high on a plateau, and beneath it lay a broad sweep of valley, now half-shrouded in the silver mists of early morning. The near-at-hand field and pasture that sloped toward it were gemmed with dew. Every blade of tall gra.s.s of the mowing sparkled. Even the long rows of green shoots striping the chocolate earth of the garden flashed emerald in the morning sunlight; beyond the plowed land, through an orchard whose apple boughs were studded with ruby buds, Lucy caught a glimpse of a square brick chimney.

"Who lives in the next house?" she inquired, in an attempt to turn the unpleasant tide of the conversation. If she had felt resentment at her aunt's remarks, she at least did not show it.

"What?"

"I was wondering who lived in the next house."

"The Howes."

"I did not realize last night that you had neighbors so near at hand,"

continued the girl brightly. "Tell me about them."

"There's nothin' to tell."

"I mean who is in the family?"

"There's Martin Howe an' his three sisters, if that's what you want to know," snapped Ellen.

Lucy, however, was not to be rebuffed. She attributed her aunt's ungraciousness to her irritation about the breakfast and, determining to remain unruffled, she went on patiently:

"It's nice for you to have them so near, isn't it?"

"It don't make no difference to me, their bein' there. I don't know 'em."

For some reason that Lucy could not fathom, the woman's temper seemed to be rising, and being a person of tact she promptly s.h.i.+fted the subject.

"No matter about the Howes any more, Aunt Ellen," she said, smiling into the other's frowning face. "Tell me instead what you want me to do to help you to-day? Now that I'm here you must divide the work with me so I may have my share."

Although Ellen did not return the smile, the scowl on her forehead relaxed.

"You'll find plenty to keep you busy, I guess," she returned. "There's all the housework to be done--dishes, beds, an' sweepin'; an' then there's milk to set an' skim; eggs to collect an' pack for market; hens to feed; an'----"

"Goodness me!"