that if you're a little short of meat. It's tasty. Rice à la creole is chopped ham, rice, and tomatoes baked together, and shepherd's pie is chopped lamb and mashed potatoes baked and—" Theresa dropped her dust-rag suddenly and threw herself on the couch. "What's the use of cleaning or talking about cooking?" she asked. "I'm not interested in that sort of thing and neither are you."
Lillian laughed. "We were pretending that we were housewives," she said. "You weren't pretending, though. You're a wow at cooking and cleaning and sewing and all that sort of thing. I wish I was."
Theresa reached over to the smoking-table and got herself a cigarette. "Say, did you hear that story of Anna's about the Scotchman carrying the anvil?"
"Yes, isn't that a wow?"
"I thought it was funny."
"I told it to Louise, but she didn't know what an anvil was. Can you beat that? It's sort of a hammer, isn't it, Theresa?"
"Well, sort of. Of course most times it's the thing that the hammer hits. You know blacksmiths use them to shape horseshoes on."
"Yes, that's what I thought. Louise is kind of thick."
Theresa glanced at the clock and went to the kitchen. "Want to come watch?" she asked. "I'm going to fix lunch. It's going on twelve."
"Gee, I just had breakfast."
"Well, that's your tough luck. Twelve is lunch-hour. You should have gotten up earlier if you were going to snoop around for lunch dates."
