GI Brides by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online Page B

he roared. “I won’t eat your old jam! I want
butter
! A lot of it! You’re a bad old aunt, you are, and I don’t like you.”
    In despair Lexie went downstairs and concocted the nicest supper she could out of the supply she had bought.
    The children came down presently, one at a time. Angelica first. Lexie, hurrying to get everything on the table, heard the child calling, “
Hi,
Elaine! There’s hard-boiled egg-wheels on the spinach, and the potatoes have their overcoats on.”
    And then she heard a howl from Gerald: “I don’t like old spinach! I won’t eat it, even if it has got old egg-wheels on it. I hate spinach. I want
beef
steak!”
    Lexie took a deep breath. This was going to be an endurance test, it seemed. Oh why, why,
why
?
    “Run up and call the other children, Angel,” she said with a forced smile. “I’m just going to take the omelet up, and it needs to be eaten while it’s piping hot.”
    The little girl gave one eager, hungry look at her aunt’s bright face and hurried upstairs, calling the news about the omelet as she went.
    But she came down again soon with a haughty imitation of her mother’s tone.
    “Elaine says it’s no use for you to try to stuff spinach down us. We won’t eat it. We
never
do! And she thinks that’s pretty poor fare for the first meal when your relatives come home. She says we don’t eat spinach nor omelet, and
you can’t make us
!”
    “Oh,” said Lexie cheerfully, “that’s too bad, isn’t it, when we can’t get anything else but what I’ve got here. But of course you don’t
have
to eat it unless you like. I’m not going to try to stuff it down you. I only thought maybe you were hungry, and since these were the only things I could get for us tonight, you might be glad to have them. But if you don’t want them, that’s all right with me. As soon as I get the dishes washed and everything put away I’ll try and fix a place for you to sleep. If you get to sleep soon I don’t suppose you’ll mind being hungry for tonight.”
    Angelica looked at her aunt aghast as she set the puffy brown omelet on the table, put the open dish of bright green spinach with its wheels of yellow and white egg beside it, and then sat down as if she were going to eat it all by herself. Deliberately she helped herself to some of each dish on the table and began to eat with slow, small bites, smiling at the little girl pleasantly. Suddenly Angelica set up a howl: “Come down here quick, Gerry! She’s eating it all up! She’s got a nice dinner all ready and she’s
eating it up herself
! Hurry up and bring Bluebell down with you. Hurry, or it will all be gone!”
    Lexie smiled to herself as she realized that she had conquered for once. Perhaps that was the way to manage them. Let them think you didn’t care whether they ate or not. So she went steadily on eating slow mouthfuls while Angelica fairly danced up and down in a fury.
    “Gerald!
Ger-a-l-d!
Come
quick
! She’s eating it all up from us, and I’m
h-o-n-g-ry
!”
    “Oh,” said Lexie pleasantly. “Would you like to have some dinner? Suppose you sit down here beside me. What would you like to have?”
    “I want some of that puffy om-let!” announced Angelica, slamming herself into the chair indicated. “And I want some of that nice green stuff with yellow wheels on it.”
    Lexie put a small amount of spinach on the child’s plate, with a slice of lovely hard-boiled egg on the top, and beside it a helping of beautifully browned omelet. The little girl lost no time in sampling the food.
    “It’s
good
!” she screamed. Gerald, who suddenly had appeared in the doorway with Bluebell by the hand, looked on jealously.
    Lexie paid no attention to him until he came closer to the table.
    “I
want
some!” he announced.
    “Oh, do you?” said Lexie calmly. “Well, sit down on this other side, and I’ll put a big book on a chair for the baby.”
    Amazingly, they were finally seated, eating with zest.
    “I want