“What will we have, Grandma?”

“Oh, we’ll have . . . we’ll have . . . What would yow like . . . nice fresh eggs boiled in Grandma’s new little kettle . . . or some creamed toast . . . or baked potatoes. . . ?”

“Mother doesn’t let me eat potatoes at night.”

“Oh, I see. That’s all right. We’ll do as Mother wishes.”

“What are you smiling at, Grandma?”

“I guess I was just smiling to think how nice it is that you have so many things to choose from for your meals. You see when my children were little, it was so hard to get enough food for them, that anything agreed with them.”

They gathered the eggs. “. . . in the very same egg pail your papa used to gather them,” Abbie told Laura. And the child gazed with awe at the antique which had been saved from an age that seemed as remote to her as the one in which Noah’s ark figured. They fed and watered the chickens. “. . . and see, . . . every time they take a drink they look up and thank God for it,” said Abbie Deal, with a fine disregard for natural science and a sublime faith in her fowls’ morale. They ate supper. “. . . and now, you’ll wipe the dishes when Grandma washes them, . . .” with Laura excited beyond measure at the unusual confidence placed upon her close associations with chinaware.

Afterwards they went out on the porch and Abbie held the little girl on her lap. She cuddled her up and put her wrinkled cheek against the child’s firm one. Oh, why didn’t mothers do it more when they had the chance? What were clubs and social affairs and freedom by comparison? And what was freedom?

“Tell a story now, Grandma.”

“A fairy one or a real one?”

“A real one about when you were little.”

“Well, when I was a little girl . . .” Laura wiggled with contentment. “When I was a little girl I had a doll and you never could guess what it was made out of.”

“No . . . what was it made out of, Grandma?”

“A stone . . . and it had a little round stone head. . . .”

Yes, Abbie Deal was contented,—as contented as countless mothers, in a rather topsy-turvy world, are still contented.

CHAPTER XXVIII

And now war again,—war, spreading its fear and heartaches like the circling ripples of a wave to the most remote farms beyond the tiniest village. And in the old farmhouse behind the cedars Abbie had said good-by to young Dr. Fred Baker and Stanley Deal, her two oldest grandsons, looking big and fine in their khaki.

“You know, Grandma, from the time Germany ran over little Belgium, . . .”

“You wouldn’t want us to stand by and let a bully . . .” Yes, yes, the words came back,—the same words,—the same spirit. How the clock hands went around.