her eyes and ears!

You have seen a drop of water caught in a crystal? Well, that was what
Miss Mink was like. She moved in the tiniest possible groove with her
home at one end and her church at the other. Is it any wonder that when
she beheld a strange young foreigner sitting stiffly on her parlor sofa,
and realized that she must entertain him for at least an hour, that
panic seized her?

"I better be seeing to dinner," she said hastily. "You can look at the
album till I get things dished up."

Private Bowinski, surnamed Alexis, sat with knees awkwardly hunched and
obediently turned the leaves of the large album, politely scanning the
placid countenances of departed Minks for several generations.

Miss Mink, moving about in the inner room, glanced in at him from time
to time. After the first glance she went to the small store room and got
out a jar of sweet pickle, and after the second she produced a glass of
crab apple jelly. Serving a soldier guest who had voluntarily adopted
her country, was after all not so distasteful, if only she did not have
to talk to him. But already the coming ordeal was casting its baleful
shadow.

When they were seated opposite one another at the small table, her worst
fears were realized. They could neither of them think of anything to
say. If she made a move to pass the bread to him he insisted upon
passing it to her. When she rose to serve him, he rose to serve her. She
had never realized before how oppressive excessive politeness could be.