"My oldest daughter, Doris, is getting breakfast. As a special treat,
she is giving us pancakes and maple sirup, and she feels they require
her constant presence. She will be in presently, however."
Doris, listening at the door, could have blessed her father for the
words. He had spoken of the pancakes as a favor instead of dire
necessity--and perhaps the bishop would think that ordinarily they had
common things like bacon and eggs, and hot muffins, and strawberry
preserves, and grapefruit. More than that, he had offered a half
apology for her absence, and Doris flatly refused to appear. She would
cook for the bishop, she would wash his dishes and make his bed--but
look him in the face she could not.
Presently they went out to the table, and Zee carefully carried the
platter of cakes to the table, and later took it back to the kitchen
for refilling. And Rosalie chattered, and smiled into the bishop's
eyes--for practise, she said afterward, not because she really hoped to
dazzle a bishop, and the breakfast went smoothly on.
Doris, in the kitchen, flapped the cakes over, and pulled the griddles
back and forth with a fury none the less real because it perforce was
silent, for in spite of her resentment not one sound would she permit
to reach the ears of the bishop in her dining-room. And the heat of the
stove made her cheeks crimson, and her bad disposition made her eyes
like bright sweet stars.
When breakfast was over the bishop seated himself comfortably with a
paper in a far corner of the living-room where he was out of the way,
and Rosalie ran off to college. After doing up the dishes, the younger
girls also hurried to school, and Mr. Artman went out to the garage
to look over the motor--not that he knew anything about motors, but
because all conscientious owners of autos do it.
Doris was very much ashamed of her childish temper by this time, but
after so long an absence she had not the heart to appear properly and
humbly before the bishop to welcome him to the manse, and she stuck
resolutely to the kitchen getting things ready for dinner. Still the
bishop rocked comfortably in the living-room, the door open between him
and the dining-room through which Doris must pass to reach the other
part of the house. And there was so much to be done up-stairs--maybe
she could slip out to the barn and make father take the odious bishop
for a ride.
Well, did you ever! There came a sudden light knock on the kitchen
door, and before Doris had time to slip off the table where she had
been swinging her heels in perplexity it opened, and the bishop's
friendly face appeared.
"Good morning. May I come in? How busy you are to-day. I am afraid I
have caused you extra work. You are Miss Doris, aren't you? I shall
never forget the hand that is responsible for those delicious pancakes."
"Can you ever forget the hand that jerked you out of dreamland in the
middle of the night?" she asked, laughing, the last trace of her anger
vanishing forever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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