morning with the call from the foot of the stairs of,
"Fanny! Your egg'll get cold!"

She put on clean, crisp underwear, and did her hair
expertly. She slipped an all-enveloping pinafore over her
head, that the new silk dress might not be crushed before
church time. She thought that Theodore would surely have
finished his breakfast by this time. But when she came
down-stairs he was at the table. Not only that, he had just
begun his breakfast. An egg, all golden, and white, and
crisply brown at the frilly edges, lay on his plate.
Theodore always ate his egg in a mathematical sort of way.
He swallowed the white hastily first, because he disliked
it, and Mrs. Brandeis insisted that he eat it. Then he
would brood a moment over the yolk that lay, unmarred and
complete, like an amber jewel in the center of his plate.
Then he would suddenly plunge his fork into the very heart
of the jewel, and it would flow over his plate, mingling
with the butter, and he would catch it deftly with little
mops of warm, crisp, buttery roll.

Fanny passed the breakfast table just as Theodore plunged
his fork into the egg yolk. She caught her breath sharply,
and closed her eyes. Then she turned and fled to the front
porch and breathed deeply and windily of the heady September
Wisconsin morning air. As she stood there, with her stiff,
short black curls still damp and glistening, in her best
shoes and stockings, with the all-enveloping apron covering
her sturdy little figure, the light of struggle and
renunciation in her face, she typified something at once