Fair Weather

The next morning the girls awake at 5:30 am, shocked at how they have overslept. Rosie puts on her “everyday” clothes: a faded calico shirt and skirt made from a feed sack. She and Lottie go to work in the kitchen, first scrubbing away its cobwebs and grease and then making a breakfast of pancakes. The girls sing, and Rosie says she took her cue from Lottie but wondered if she was “beginning to know [she] couldn’t always take [her] cues from her” (76).

The cook, Mrs. O’Shay, appears and complains loudly to Aunt Euterpe. Lottie retorts that they have cleaned the filthy kitchen. Mrs. O’Shay says she will leave and insults Aunt Euterpe, saying she was hired by Mr. Fleischacker and will never know how Aunt Euterpe “nabbed him” by marriage. When she reaches into her pocket to give her housekey back to Euterpe, she is bitten by a snapping turtle in her apron that Buster has hidden in there. She runs out of the back door, followed by the maid. Buster wonders aloud where his turtle has gone.

Euterpe worries that good help is hard to find and wonders if she should move into a hotel. Because she was formerly Mr.