I withdraw my head from the oven,
hastily. The basting spoon is immersed in the bottom of
the pan. I turn, indignant. The Spalpeens look up at me
with innocent eyes.
"You little divils, what do you mean by shoving your
old aunt into the oven! It's cannibals you are!"
The idea pleases them. They release my legs
and execute a savage war dance around me. The Spalpeens
are firm in the belief that I was brought to their home
for their sole amusement, and they refuse to take me
seriously. The Spalpeens themselves are two of the
finest examples of real humor that ever were perpetrated
upon parents. Sheila is the first-born. Norah decided
that she should be an Irish beauty, and bestowed upon her
a name that reeks of the bogs. Whereupon Sheila, at the
age of six, is as flaxen-haired and blue-eyed and stolid
a little German madchen as ever fooled her parents, and
she is a feminine reproduction of her German Dad. Two
years later came a sturdy boy, and they named him Hans,
in a flaunt of defiance. Hans is black-haired, gray-eyed
and Irish as Killarny.
"We're awful hungry," announces Sheila.
"Can't you wait until dinner time? Such a grand
dinner!"
Sheila and Hans roll their eyes to convey to me that,
were they to wait until dinner for sustenance we should
find but their lifeless forms.
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