“I wonder if the parlor’s so I can ask them in there?” Mr. Tuxbury remarked, edging toward the door.

“I s’pose so.  I ain’t been in there this mornin’; I s’pose it’s all right unless the children have been in an’ cluttered it up.”

“No, we ain’t, gramma, we ain’t,” proclaimed the children in a shrill shout.  They danced around the table, removing the knives and forks; their innocent, pinky faces were full of cherubic glee.  This occasion was, metaphorically speaking, a whole flock of jubilant infantile larks for them.  They loved company with all their souls, and they also felt always a pleasant titillation of their youthful spirits when they saw their grandmother in perturbation.  Unless, indeed, they themselves were the cause of it, when it acquired a personal force which rendered it not so entertaining.

Soon, however, a remark of their grandmother’s caused their buoyant spirits to realize that there was a force of gravitation for all here below.

“I don’t know but you children will have to wait,” said she.

There was an instantaneous wail of dismay, the pinky faces elongated, the blue eyes scowled sulkily.  “Oh, gramma, we don’t want to wait!  Can’t we sit down with the others?  Say, gramma, can’t we?  Can’t we sit down with the others?”

“Of course you can sit down with the others.  Don’t make such a racket, children.”  That was their mother coming in, good-natured and triumphant, with the pie.

“I don’t know whether they can or not,” said their grandmother.  “I ain’t put in an extra leaf; this table-cloth wa’n’t long enough, an’ I wa’n’t goin’ to have the big table-cloth to do up for all the Maxwells in creation.”

“Oh, there’s room enough,” Flora said, easily.  “I can squeeze them in beside me.  Put the napkins round, children, and stop teasing.  Didn’t I get a beautiful pie?”

“What kind is it?”

“Squash.”

“An’ our squashes are all gone, an’ I’ve got to buy one to pay her back.  I should have thought you’d known better, Flora.”

“It was all the kind she had.  I couldn’t help it.  Squashes don’t cost much, mother.”

“They cost something, an’ I’ve got all them dried apples to use up for pies.”

“Have they come in?” asked Flora, with happy unconcern about the cost of squashes and the utilization of dried apples.

“Yes, I s’pose so.  I thought I heard Daniel taking ’em in the front door.  I s’pose they’re in the parlor.”

“You ought to go in a minute, hadn’t you?”

“I s’pose so,” replied Mrs. Lowe, with a sigh of fierce resignation.

“I’ll finish setting the things on the table, and you go in.  Take off your apron.”

“This dress don’t look fit.”

“Yes, it does, too; it’s clean.  Run along.”

Mrs. Lowe smoothed her sparse hair severely at the kitchen looking-glass; then she advanced upon the parlor with the air of a pacific grenadier.  The children were following slyly in her wake, but their mother caught sight of them and pulled them back.