“We can’t compete with the factories,” they said sadly. “But, hang it all, what’s a man going to do?” he inquired petulantly. The agencies, perforce, left him to answer that for himself. As a matter of fact Carter was not wholly unselfish in his desire to relieve his wife of the housework—particularly the culinary part of it. She did her conscientious best, but she had never been able satisfactorily to master the fine art of cooking. Possibly it was because she herself was more or less indifferent to what she ate. A slice of bread and a cup of tea were enough at any time to satisfy her, so that when she did cook it was always for him and without any other personal interest in the result. Sometimes she forgot; in fact, more often than not she forgot. Perhaps it was only some one little thing, like leaving the baking powder out of the biscuits or the sugar out of the pies. Or if she did get everything in, perhaps she failed to remember in time that the mixture was in the oven. When she began fooling round with war recipes she found herself even more bewildered. Lord knows, it calls for deft fingers and inborn skill to make a good pie crust out of honest wheat flour, with all thought of economy thrown to the winds. It requires nothing short of genius to produce the same results with substitutes for everything except the apples. She tried all one afternoon and created something that had a fairly good surface appearance. She waited anxiously until Carter tasted it, and then asked: “How do you like it, Ben?” “You want the truth?” he returned. “Of course there is no white flour in the crust, but——” “There isn’t anything in it that ought to be in a pie,” he declared. “It tastes to me as though it were made out of sawdust and motor oil.” He did not eat it. It might have been possible had he been starving, but he was in no such unfortunate condition. A man does not ask for apple pie because of its calory content, but because he wants apple pie. It is a matter of taste. A primary essential is, then, not that it shall look like apple pie, but that it shall have the flavor of apple pie. He had been fond of apple pie all his life, and it certainly seemed like an innocent enough addiction. That was equally true of doughnuts and coffee for breakfast. He had enjoyed them all his life until they had become an integral part of the morning meal. As a result of long practice Mrs. Carter had finally succeeded in perfecting herself in the art of doughnut making. But now instead of frying them in fat, she began to use an excellent vegetable substitute. Not only that, but she followed this by using a sirup for the sugar, and using eighty per cent barley flour and twenty of wheat. She had been given the recipe by the local conservation board and been assured that the product was very satisfactory.