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There was nothing of mirth in the woman’s drawn face. “Oh, Ernie, f’r God’s sake! What they goin’ to do to you!”

He was half way up the narrow stairway, she at the foot of it, peering up at him. “They won’t do anything. I guess old Hatton ain’t so stuck on havin’ his swell golf club crowd know his little boy was beat up by one of the workmen.”

He was clumping about upstairs now. So she turned toward the kitchen, dazedly. She glanced at the clock. Going on toward five. Still in the absurd hat she got out a panful of potatoes and began to peel them skilfuly, automatically. The seamed and hardened fingers had come honestly by their deftness. They had twirled and peeled pecks–bushels–tons of these brown balls in their time.

At five-thirty Pa came in. At six, Minnie. She had to go back to the Sugar Bowl until nine. Five minutes later the supper was steaming on the table.

“Ernie,” called Ma, toward the ceiling. “Er-nie! Supper’s on.” The three sat down at the table without waiting. Pa had slipped off his shoes, and was in his stockinged feet. They ate in silence. It was a good meal. A European family of the same class would have considered it a banquet. There were meat and vegetables, butter and home-made bread, preserve and cake, true to the standards of the extravagant American labouring-class household. In the summer the garden supplied them with lettuce, beans, peas, onions, radishes, beets, potatoes, corn, thanks to Ma’s aching back and blistered hands. They stored enough vegetables in the cellar to last through the winter.

Buzz usually cleaned up after supper. But to-night, when he came down, he was already clean-shaven, clean-shirted, and his hair was wet from the comb. He took his place in silence. His acid-stained work shoes had been replaced by his good tan ones. Evidently he was going down town after supper. Buzz never took any exercise for the sake of his body’s good. Sometimes he and the Lembke boys across the way played a game of ball in the middle of the road, or in the vacant lot, but they did it out of the game instinct, and with no thought of their muscles’ gain.

But to-night, evidently, there was to be no ball. Buzz ate little. His mother, forever between the stove and the table, ate less. But that was nothing unusual in her. She waited on the others, but mostly she hovered about the boy.

“Ernie, you ain’t eaten your potatoes. Look how nice an’ mealy they are.”

“Don’t want none.”

“Ernie, would you rather have a baked apple than the raspberry preserve? I fixed a pan this morning.”

“Naw. Lemme alone. I ain’t hungry.”

He slouched from the table. Minnie, teacup in hand, regarded him over its rim with wide, malicious eyes. “I saw that Kearney girl go by here before supper, and she rubbered in like everything.”

“You’re a liar,” said Buzz, unemotionally.

“I did so! She went by and then she came back again. I saw her both times. Say, I guess I ought to know her. Anybody in town’d know Kearney.”

Buzz had been headed toward the front porch. He hesitated and turned, now, and picked up the newspaper from the sitting-room sofa. Pa Werner, in trousers, shirt and suspenders, was padding about the kitchen with his pipe and tobacco. He came into the sitting room now and stood a moment, his lips twisted about the pipe-stem. The pipe’s putt-putting gave warning that he was about to break into unaccustomed speech. He regarded Buzz with beady, narrowed eyes.

“You let me see you around with that Kearney girl and I’ll break every bone in your body, and hers too. The hussy!”

“Oh, you will, will you?”

Ma, who had been making countless trips from the kitchen to the back garden with water pail and sprinkling can sagging from either arm, put in a word to stay the threatening storm. “Now, Pa! Now, Ernie!” The two men subsided into bristling silence.