We had a school on our side that summer, and what with that and Mrs. Chadwick, I did not go to the Haynes' as often as before. Ben and Homer came over frequently. Homer was a big fellow, almost as tall as Dan, and quite a favorite with the girls as well. There were many pleasure parties for the grown-up ones—rowing, when the lake was not too rough, and sailing parties. Some of the more venturesome ones took an excursion over to Black Rock.
Our nearest French neighbors were the Piagets, and the two girls, Sophie and Nanette, soon became very friendly. Nanette was a little younger than I, Sophie, nearly two years older, bright, vivacious girls, who had some accomplishments beyond our ken. We sewed patchwork, but it was difficult to get pieces, though now and then a quilt was made of blue and white. But Sophie could make fringe with an ingenious knot in it, and she could knit edging. That set all us girls crazy to learn.
They talked rather broken English and were very eager to perfect themselves. And after screwing my courage up many degrees I confessed I would like to learn French. What work we made of it, and how we laughed at the German tongue! You began to hear it quite often in the street.
M'liss had taken up her abode with us. Jed Hatch had gone lumbering up the lake, above where Milwaukee now stands, where there was some fine timber that could be rafted down in auspicious weather. They had what we should now call a logging camp. Father wondered how they had ever persuaded Jed to join them, but I think M'liss had a strong hand in it. So she brought little Joe, who was now quite a respectable baby. Mrs. Chadwick had more than once said to father some woman ought to come in and take charge, and M'liss thought she made a good bargain hiring out her house for a certain amount of repairs.
M'liss brought her big wheel, the little one I had already, but when I would have spun she turned me away with a gentle push and—
"Oh, you jest g'lang. Ther' be time er nough nex' winter, when you can't run out en play en skip round. En ther's so little work to do I'm main afeared I'll git rickets by so much sittin' still."
Then M'liss was in her element cooking, and father enjoyed that.
Sophie was very eager to see Chicago. They had lived inland many miles from Kaskaskia, and as I came to know afterward, had a hard struggle with poverty.
"I think everybody has come from somewhere else," she said one day, when I had been telling about the Haynes, the Wrights, and ourselves.
"Why, of course," I said, "people don't grow in new countries like trees. They have to come from somewhere else," and she laughed.