Even Helen knew better than this. She knew better than that when she was _born_, she thought, suppressing a pitying smile, “Gracious no! You would get the shell all mixed up with the insides,” she explained. They stared again at the egg. To Helen came the knowledge that responsibility must be assumed. “Somebody’s got to,” she said grimly. “I’ll try again.” She took the egg in her hand and resolutely struck it a small blow on the edge of the bowl. The shell cracked a little. “That sounds good,” said Lester; “give it another whack.” She repeated the blow and, holding the egg up above her head till she could see the under side, reported that there was a perceptible crack and some wetness oozing out. But that was not enough. She must go on and see it through. How queer not to have somebody tell her what to do and make her do it. “I’m going to try to pull it apart,” she announced courageously, feeling like a heroine. She got the tips of her fingers into the tiny crack and pulled, shutting her eyes. Something happened. A gush of cold sticky stuff over her fingers, a little glass-like tinkle of breaking egg-shell in her hand, and there in the bowl were the contents of the egg, the golden yolk swimming roundly in the transparent white. “Hurrah! Good for you!” shouted her father admiringly. But Helen found in her heart a new conscience which made her refuse to accept too easily won praise. “No, that’s not right,” she said, frowning at the crushed, dripping shell in her hand. “When Mother does it, the stuff comes out nice and clean, with each half of the shell like a little cup.” She closed her eyes, summoned all her will-power and thought back to the times when she had watched Mother cook. Mother held it so (Helen went through the pantomime), she brought it down with a little quick jerk, _so_, and then.... “Oh, goody! goody! I know!” she cried, hopping up and down. “_I_ know. She turns it over after she’s cracked it, with the crack on the up-side, and then she _pries_ it open. Give me another egg.” * * * * * Well, it certainly was a far cry from those early fumbling days, wasn’t it, to now, when both she and Father could crack and separate an egg with their eyes shut and one hand tied behind their backs, so to speak; when they thought nothing of turning out in a Saturday morning a batch of bread, two pies, and enough cookies to last them a week. They didn’t even talk about their cooking much any more, just decided what they were going to make and went ahead and made it, visiting together as they worked like a couple of magpies chattering.