Explore "The Spiral Staircase" by Ethel Lina White on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When Helen entered the kitchen, she was greeted by the explosions of splattering fat. Although the table was crowded with materials for dinner--in different stages of preparation--while vegetables bubbled on the range, Mrs. Oates fried fish, juggled with her saucepans, and dried her husband's wet things over the boiler. In spite of the seeming confusion, she took these interludes in her stride, without loss of head, or temper.
Oates, in his grey woollen cardigan, was eating a huge meal in the corner, which his wife had cleared for him. He was a good-natured giant of a man, with the build of a prize-fighter.