Page:Good Sports (1919).djvu/216

Rh is. Those girls of mine won't have a stitch of machine work on any of their babies' clothes. Nonsense, I say. Why, I remember how proud I was of my first machine-hemmed ruffles. But there! I've started off on another of my records!"

"I've never heard any of them. I enjoy them, Mrs. Harvey," Mrs. Jesse protested.

"No, it's six o'clock and I've got to go along. It's my baby's birthday. He's twenty-six, and I've got to put the candles on his cake, and get up into my gift trunk in the attic, before supper. Junior and his wife are coming over, and I'm sort of afraid Junior's forgotten about Roy's birthday. You have to keep after this modern generation a little. I have a supply of presents on hand for just such emergencies. Good-night, Mrs. Jesse. Come over on the Fourth. You must know us Harveys."

The Fourth of July proved to be a very warm one that year. Mrs. Harvey was down-stairs early, closing blinds and drawing shades, in the hope that a little of the cool night air might be preserved in air-tight and darkened rooms against another day's attack of burning heat and scorching sun. Barefooted, still in her short nightgown, she picked her way out to the back hall to