  Grandma Sue had been often to the side porch nearest the lane and had gazed toward the highway wondering why her girl did not return. The supper had been ready for some time and the specially ordered chocolate pudding was done to perfection. At last the old woman hurried back into the kitchen to exclaim: “Wall, I declare to it, if Jenny ain’t fetchin’ someone home to supper. I reckon its Mis’ Dearborn, her teacher, as she sets sech a store by.” But, as Dobbin approached at his best speed (for, was he not nearing his own supper?) the old woman, peering from behind the white muslin curtains at a kitchen window, uttered an ejaculation of surprise. “Silas Warner,” she turned wide-eyed toward the old man, who, in carpet slippers, had made himself comfortable in his tipped back arm chair to read the Rural News. “Yeap, Susan?” his tone was one of indifferent inquiry. He presumed that his spouse was merely going to affirm what she had already suspected. Well, even if that were true, all he would have to put on was the house coat Jenny had made for him. It never would do to go to the table in shirt sleeves if teacher—he rose to carry out this indolently formed decision when he saw his wife tip-toeing across the room toward him, her finger on her lips. “Shh! Don’t say nothin’, Si!” she whispered. “Jenny’s left the horse hitched and she’s comin’ right in and trailin’ arter her is a gal totin’ a hand satchel. Who do you cal’late it can be?” The old man hastily slipped on the plaid house coat and stood waiting, trying not to look too curious when their girl burst in with, “Oh, Granny, Granddad, this is my friend Etta Heldt. You know I told you about the girl who pares vegetables up at the seminary and who always looked so—so unhappy.” Jenny did not want to say discontented as she had that other time. “Well, I’ve found out what makes her unhappy and I’ve fetched her over to supper. Etta, this is my Grandmother Sue and my Granddaddy Si.” The strange girl sent a half appealing, half frightened glance at each of the old people and then burst into tears. Jenny slipped a protecting arm about her new friend, as she said by way of explanation: “Etta’s all upset about something. I’ll take her into my room to rest a bit, and then I’ll come back and tell you about it.” Left alone, the elderly couple looked at each other in amazement. “I reckon that poor girl is like the stray kittens and forlorn dogs our Jenny fetches home so often,” the old woman said softly. “I never saw such a hungerin’ sort of look in human eyes afore.” The old man dropped back into his armed chair and shook his head as much as to say that their “gal’s” ways were beyond his comprehension. A moment later that same “gal” reappeared and, going at once to her grandfather, she knelt at his side and held his knotted work-hardened hand in a clinging clasp. “Tut! Tut! Jenny, you’re all a-tremble.” The old man always felt deeply moved when the girl he loved seemed to be troubled. He placed his free hand on her curls. “I reckon you’d better start at the beginnin’. Me’n your grandma here is powerful curious.” The girl sprang up. “Granny dear,” she pleaded, “you sit here in your rocker and I’ll be close between you on this stool. Now I’ll tell you all and please, please, please say yes.” The two old people looked lovingly into the eager, uplifted face of their darling and wondered what the request was to be. They never had denied their “gal” anything she had asked for in the past, but they had always been such simple desires and so easily fulfilled. However, there was an expression in the girl’s lovely face that made them both believe that this was to be no ordinary request. Jenny glanced from one to another of her grandparents anxiously, eagerly. Then, taking a hand of each, she fairly clung to them as her words rushed and tumbled out, sometimes incoherently, but the picture was clearly depicted for all that. The two old people could see the forlorn little Belgian girl coming alone to America to join the mother who had died and been buried only two days before the child reached San Francisco. Then the long dreary years in a crowded city orphanage where no one really cared. Grandma Sue began to wipe her eyes with one corner of her apron at that part of the story. She was thinking that their own darling might have been brought up in just such a place had not Grandpa Si happened to see the canopied wagon on that long ago day. The girl felt the soft wrinkled hand quivering in her clasp, and she looked up almost joyfully, for she believed she had an ally. Then she told of the time when Etta had reached an age where she could no longer be kept in the institution and how work had been procured for her paring vegetables at Granger Place Seminary. Food and a place to sleep were about all that orphan girls were given, and so, although she had tried and tried to save the little money she earned, she could not, for she had to buy shoes and clothes. The old woman nodded understandingly. “What was she savin’ for, dearie? Anything special?” “Oh, yes, Grandma Sue, something very special.” Then Jenny told about the feeble old grandparents far across the sea whose little farm had been laid waste by the war and how they longed for their granddaughter to be a comfort in their last days. At this point Grandpa Si took out his big red bandana handkerchief and blew his nose hard. He was thinking what it would mean to them if their Jenny was far away and couldn’t get back. Then, looking at their “gal” shrewdly, he asked, “Jenny, darlin’, what be yo’ aimin’ at? Yo’ ain’t jest tellin’ this story sort of random-like, be yo’?” The girl shook her head. “No! No!” Her tear-brimmed eyes implored first one and then the other. Then she explained that it would take one hundred dollars to pay for Etta’s transportation in the steerage. How the girl pleaded, her sensitive lips quivering. “Think of it, Grandma Sue, Granddad, only one hundred dollars to take that poor girl to her old grandparents who love her so. Won’t you let me loan her that much from the money I’ve made selling eggs and honey? Please, please say that you will. You’ve always told me that it is mine and oh, I do so want to help Etta.” Then, as her surprised listeners hesitated, she hurried on: “She’ll pay it back, every cent, and only the other day, Granddad, you said you didn’t think the farm was going to be sold, because nothing more had been heard about it.” The old man’s eyes questioned his spouse. Still tearful, Grandma Sue nodded. Then drawing the girl to her, she held her close as she said, “Silas, I reckon we owe it to the good Lord to help one of His poor little children.” “O, Granny! O, Grandpa! However can I thank you?” The flushed, happy girl sprang up, kissed each of them and ran toward the bedroom to tell the wonderful news to the waiting Etta. |
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