touch the underneath part. Why can't you just--"

But her mother's scandalized look silenced her. She must have made a
faux pas. Father and Rev. MacGill laughed outright, and Aunt Nettie
smiled a withering smile.

"That's a brilliant idea," she said satirically. "Perhaps you'd have
us pick out the untouched bits of the crust, too!" Missy regarded
her aunt reproachfully but helplessly; she was too genuinely upset
for any repartee. Why did Aunt Nettie like to put her "in wrong"?
Her suggestion seemed to her perfectly reasonable. Why didn't they
act on it? But of course they'd ignore it, just making fun of her
now but punishing her afterward. For she divined very accurately
that they would hold her accountable for Gypsy's blunder--even
though the blunder was rectifiable; it was a BIG pie, and most of it
as good as ever. They were unreasonable, unjust.

Mother seemed unable to tear herself away from the despoiled
masterpiece.

"Come, mamma," said father, "it's nothing to make such a fuss about.
Just trot out some of that apple sauce of yours. Mr. MacGill doesn't
get to taste anything like that every day." He turned to the
minister. "The world's full of apple sauce--but there's apple sauce
and apple sauce. Now my wife's apple sauce is APPLE SAUCE! I tell
her it's a dish for a king."

And Rev. MacGill, after sampling the impromptu dessert, assured his
hostess that her husband's eulogy had been only too moderate. He
vowed he had never eaten such apple sauce. But Mrs. Merriam still