Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an
all-enveloping gingham apron. "How did you like your surprise, father?"
She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting dinner
so that Gussie can go on with the attic. Everything's ready if you want
to come in. I didn't want to dish up until you were at the table, so's
everything would be hot." She threw a laughing glance at Pinky.
But when they were seated, there appeared a platter of cold, thinly
sliced ham for Pinky, and a crisp salad, and a featherweight cheese
souffle, and iced tea, and a dessert coolly capped with whipped cream.
"But, mother, you shouldn't have--" feebly.
"There are always a lot of things in the house. You know that. I just
wanted to tease you."
Father Brewster lingered for an unwonted hour after the midday meal. But
two o'clock found him back at the cold-storage plant. Pinky watched him
go, a speculative look in her eyes.
She visited the attic that afternoon at four, when it was again neat,
clean, orderly, smelling of soap and sunshine. Standing there in the
centre of the big room, freshly napped, smartly coiffed, blue-serged,
trim, the very concentrated essence of modernity, she eyed with stern
deliberation the funeral wheat wreath in its walnut frame; the trunks;
the chests; the boxes all shelved and neatly inscribed with their "H's
Fshg Tckl" and "Blk Nt Drs."
"Barbaric!" she said aloud, though she stood there alone. "Medieval!
Mad! It has got to be stopped.
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