“Am I? I’m afraid I do go too far sometimes, but, Jo, my beloved little ducky dear, if you did but know how anxious I am that you should stand above criticism it wouldn’t worry you in the least when I jump on you in this way.”
“Am I criticized?” asked Joanne anxiously.
“Of course you are, all of us are. Did you ever know a set of girls who didn’t criticize?”
“I don’t know many girls, at least not so very well, just those I have happened to meet in travelling about, and I know scarcely any boys. Gradda never liked me to play with boys, though there was one on the steamer when we came up from Bermuda, and she let me make friends with him; he was so nice, a Boy Scout, and we had fine talks. It was his mother who told us about the Everleigh school and the Girl Scouts. She is the most adorable person I ever met, the queen of my dreams. I took some snap shots of her and one I have had enlarged; I will show it to you some day if I think of it.”
Winnie looked at her a little compassionately. “You haven’t had much real home life, have you?” she said gently.
“Not so very much. Sometimes we have had a furnished cottage in the summer, but generally we have stayed at boarding houses and hotels in summer and winter. There seemed no use in having a settled home with Grad away most of the time, and with the need of going south in winter and north in summer. But now, we do have a home, a real one, and it is such a joy to all of us, especially to Grad and me. I think Gradda cares less for it on account of the servant question. She feels so helpless when the cooks leave.”
“That’s where little Girl Scout Jo should come in.”
“I don’t see how I am ever to learn housewifely things when Gradda doesn’t like me to go in the kitchen.”
“Your chance will come,” Winnie assured her. Then some of the other girls joined them and their talk was over.
It was that evening that Joanne was called to the ’phone by her Cousin Ned. “What’s this about eggs?” he said. “My name isn’t Hennery.”