When lunch was finished, Grandfather told the children that each day at this time he retires to his Study for his "quiet hours".

"Do you think it would be a good idea", he asked them, "for you to take a rest, at this time, everyday?"

Arthur said, "No, I'm not tired. I don't want to go to sleep."

"You do not need to sleep. You could think about what we learned this forenoon. After that you could listen to the birds chirping or you could just listen to the silence." Grandfather wisely told Arthur.

Arthur was interested. "How do you listen to the silence?", he asked

"You are very, very quiet, as quiet as you can be. Then you listen as though you were expecting some lovely music." Grandfather explained.

"I want to rest and listen", Ardath quickly decided.

"All right", Arthur agreed too. "I'll rest and listen." Then he actually yawned. He was really tired, but he did not like to admit it.

When the children went upstairs, they did not need to be reminded about stopping, separately in the bathroom. They had already formed good habits in Grandfather's house.

Very soon, the household was quiet, except for soft and beautiful music that seemed to come from everywhere. Arthur could have heard it, but he fell asleep so soon he did not even think of the dogs nor the vegetable garden.

When Ardath awakened, it seemed like she had slept a long time. Arthur was still asleep so she was careful not to awaken him when she was getting dressed.

Mary heard her coming downstairs and came into the hall to meet her. "How would you like to help me plan dinner, for tonight?" she asked the little girl.

"I'd like that very much, Miss Mary." Ardath was happy that Mary wanted her to help just as mother often did.

"You can be a great help." Mary encouraged her. "You may come into the kitchen now, if you wish or you may go out of doors awhile, first.

Ardath looked out the front door. There were clouds in the sky and faint rumblings in the distance. "I think I would rather come to the kitchen," Ardath told Mary.

"That will be fine." Mary said.

In the kitchen Mary had cookbooks open on the table. She placed two chairs by the table and sat on one of them. Ardath sat on the other one. Mary turned the pages of one of the books that had colorful pictures of good looking prepared foods.

"What do you think we should have for dinner, to night?" Mary asked Ardath. "Here are cookbooks to give you ideas.

Ardath looked at three cookbooks before Arthur came downstairs. Grandfather came from his Study at the same time that Arthur came into the kitchen looking for his sister.

"There you are." Grandfather pretended. "I thought you were both lost. I didn't hear anything from you for such a long time. You had a fine rest period, I'm sure." He did not need to be told, he could see they felt well rested.

"I need to look over some farm implements. Would you like to come with me?" He asked the children.

"Do you mean right, now, now?" Arthur was pleased.

Right this very minute." Grandfather was already starting for the door and Arthur was following. He had a second thought. "Ardath, would you rather stay and help Miss Mary in the kitchen?"

"Miss Mary wants me to help her decide what to make for dinner, tonight." Ardath answered quickly. She was glad Grandfather had given her a choice.

Arthur and Grandfather went out the door, together and Ardath stayed with Mary, in the kitchen.

Ardath began to look at the cookbooks again and stopped at a picture that interested her. "What is this?" she asked. "It looks good and pretty, too."

It was a picture of a brown baking dish with a yellow surface flecked with dots of orange, red and green. Mary looked at it. "It is a delicious omelet". Mary read the recipe and seemed satisfied.

"That is a good suggestion, if you and Arthur both like eggs."

Ardath assured her that both she and her brother liked eggs very much.

"So, that settles it." Mary said with no doubt. "We will have the omelet for dinner. What else would you like to eat with the omelet."

"We like baked potatoes", Ardath suggested.

"Baked potatoes will be fine with the omelet and a big tossed salad", Mary decided.

Ardath stood on a low stool at the sink and scrubbed the potatoes. It took her much longer than it would have taken Mary, but there was no rush because dinner time was more than an hour away. When the potatoes were scrubbed, Ardath helped to wash the vegetables for the salad. She scrubbed carrots with the same little brush whe had used to make the potatoes clean.

Mary praised her and was going to ask her if she wanted to set the table when Ardath said she would like to help make the omelet. She wanted to show Mother how to make it when they returned home to Phoenix.

"If you will be very careful, you may help with the omelet", Mary told Ardath."Take it steady and you won't spill anything." Mary was not quite sure that Ardath could do it, but she was willing to help her try because the little girl wanted so much to help.

Mary took a mixing bowl from the cupboard and six eggs from the refrigerator. "Can you break eggs in the bowl?" she asked Ardath.

"Yes, Mother taught me to break eggs without betting shells into them". Ardath proudly showed Mary how carefully she knocked the egg on the edge of the bowl, dropped the yolk into the bowl, then the white of the egg. Mary said it was very will done do Ardath did all six of the eggs. She got a tiny bit of shell into the bowl but picked it out with a toothpick as Mother had taught her to do.

Mary handed her an egg-beater with a little wheel on the side that had a handle on it for turning. Ardath turned the little wheel many times, then she stopped to rest and turned it over and over again, with her right hand as she held the beater in the bowl with her left hand.

"These are vegetable flakes", Mary said, as she set three small jars on the table, when she saw the eggs were frothy enough and needed no more beating. "The recipe calls for ‘three level teaspoonsful soaked ten minutes in a cup of milk", she read from the cook book.

Mary said she had dried the vegetables herself in a slow oven. The red flakes were peppers, the orange ones were carrots and the green were onion stems, parsley and celery leaves. All of the vegetables had been grown in Grandfather's garden.

As she got a brown baking dish from the shelf and Ardath buttered it as her mother had taught her to do, Mary kept telling her about the process of drying the vegetable flakes. "The drying in the low heat takes the water out of the vegetables. When they are soaked in milk, the water is put back in the flakes.

Ardath watched the flakes in the cup get bigger and bigger and greener and greener, almost like the parsley she had seen in Grandfather's garden earlier in the day. When the timer ding indicated the ten minutes were past, Mary told Ardath to combine the cup of milk and flakes with the beaten eggs and stir them wll with a few turns of the egg beater.

Mary poured something that looked like salt into a teaspoon and added it to the mixture. When Ardath asked her what it was, she said, "Vegetable salt", and read the label.

"Spinach, endive, watercress, horseradish and kelp", she read. "The kelp comes from the deep sea, but everything else could be grown in a Pennsylvania garden."

Mary had already turned on the oven and put the potatoes into it. "Now we are ready to pour our mixture into the baking dish", she said as she poured it. Ardath thought she could have done it, but it had taken a long time to explain everything to the little girl and Mary did not want to be late with the dinner.

With the omelet in the oven, Ardath closed the cookbook they had been using and put it on the shelf above a desk where she had seen Mary put the other tow books they had not needed to use. Then she carried the used disshes to the sink while Mary carried the clean dishes to the dining room so she could set the table.

It made Ardath feel very good to be helping Mary as she helped Mother at their home.
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