Omaha daily bee., 1911-11-30
Married Life the Second Year
Helen Prepares to Have Waen's Family to Thanksgiving
Dinner
By MABEL HERBERT uRNER.

preparations of the dinner.
The whole apartment must be thor
oughly cleaned and put in perfect order,
for Carries keen eyey would be every
where. There would be nothing she could
not see. Carrie herself was an excellent
housekeeper, but she kept two maids and
resolved to show her that she could keep
her apartment just as clean with only one
maid, who was not overworked.
Now, Della" going out into the
kitchen, II want to put fresh paper on all
these pantry shelves today and clean up
the pantry thoroughly. Tomorrows Sat
urday-we'll polish all the furniture and
clean all the silver and brasses. Monday
wen clean the sitting room, library and
dining room. Tuesday the bedrooms. bath
room and hall. TIN take us all Wednes-
day to get ready for dnner-we don't
want to leave any cleaning for that day."
Late Monday afternoon Helen hurried
downtown to a department store for the
roasting pan, candles and some lace
paper mats. On the way home she
stopped at a big fancy grocer's for the
nuts, bon-bons raisins, olives and fruit
The store was crowded with pyramids of
oranges, lemons and grape fruit, baskets
Of fruit tied with ribbons, and great
cases Of fancy canned and attractively
packaged goods
Helen bought more than she had in
tended. She could not resist a box of
crystalized ginger, a Jar of stuffed dates
and one OF especially washed figs. They
would make the table so much more at
tractive. Finally she had to tear herself
away for fear of buying more. Never
had the stores and the goods seemed so
alluring.
Even the butcheT's-a place from which
she usually shrankAhad a festive Thanks
giving air a fat pig with an apple in
its mouth and a paper frilled collar was
In the window, The floor was freshly
sawdusted, and the decorations Of pars-
ley and paper frills took away some of
the horror of the hanging carcasses.
On the way home she stopped
abruptly as she passed a florist. There
must be some flowers-something for a
centerpiece. Perhaps she had better leave
the order now.
She wanted roses, but found they were
too expensive go decided on two dozen
pink carnations as they made the best
show for the least money, and with her
pink candle shades would be very at
tractive.
When she reached home she had con-
seriousness Of having spent a great deal
more money than she had intended
And she found in the next two days
that there were stlll other things to buy.
Already the dinner was adding up to
much over $40, She found too, that
though she had tried to plan the work so
there would be no cleaning left for
Wednesday-yet there were still many
things to be done OF which she had not
thought
Wednesday night she worked up until
IL O'Clock and set the alarm for the
next morning Thanksgiving. She knew
that she was wearing herself out, and
that she would be too tired and too ner-
vous to enjoy the dinner. But she was
only doing what had to be done As this
was the first time she had ever had all
Of Warren's family to dinner, she was de-
termined TO have everything right" So
she could not spare herself now.
What I'm thunder have you been
doing?" grumbled Warren when she
finally came to bed.
"'oh, dear, know it's late. but there
were SO many things l had to dol was
afraid TO leave them all until tomorrow.
'Huh!' as he turned over heavily zone
would think you were getting up a ban
quet Instead of an ordinary dinner for ten
people"
He had been sleeping soundly for the
last two hours, and now he was snoring
again almost before he stopped speaking.
But Helen too tired to sleep, lay
awake wondering II everything would go
right tomorrow.