I won't try to persuade you that Isabel had got pretty (she's got an awful big nose that nothing can ever change) but she'd gotten bright and shiny. Perhaps it was only the warmth from the stove that made Isabel's cheeks so pink, but it was warmth from nothing cast-iron, I can tell you, that put color into her voice. Every little while Isabel spoke, flung out an order, called out a nick-name, said somethin' 'r other, and her voice was anythin' but dull and flat. And what she said was anythin' but dull and flat too! It was tart and snappy, and full of bubbles—like soda water. Not very refined perhaps you'd say, but 'twas good-natured and cheerful-soundin'. You could see the men liked her style of humor first-rate.
"Come, Fatty," she sang out, "don't be a pig! These doughnuts ain't pills to swallow whole," and later, "Look it here, you little bow legged corp, what you got your paw out for another for? Your jaws are still busy on the one I gave you last," and with a dangerous wave of her sharp-pronged fork, "Move back, all of yer, I'm boss here, and the next doughnut's goin' to the noisy party on the edge of the sink." She meant the little feller with the Jew's-harp. "Come on, you!" she hollered out, and beckoned to him with a lift of one of her bony shoulders.
