“I hope not,” returned Grandfather. “But you must remember, Susan, that the gypsies don’t go to school or to church, and so they don’t know the difference between right and wrong as well as the people who do.”
“They ought to go,” said Susan morally. “I go. Everybody ought to go. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to teach Gentilla Bible stories right away to-morrow. How long will she stay here? Forever?”
“No, not forever. I don’t know how long. Now you must go to sleep, or Grandmother will be up here after us.”
“I will,” promised Susan drowsily. “But, you know, Grandfather, I think they took Snuffy, too, and that is where he was all day. Don’t you?”
Grandfather nodded in the darkness. He had been thinking the same thought, but he tiptoed out of the room without another word, and a moment later Susan fell asleep.
Early the next morning she began to train Gentilla. She made her say “thank you,” and “please,” and “excuse me,” until the poor little visitor was so bewildered that she couldn’t answer the simplest question. She forced her to listen to Bible stories which she didn’t know very well herself, so poky and long-drawn-out that, if Gentilla hadn’t had a happy way of falling into little cat-naps whenever the story was too dull to bear, I don’t know what would have become of her.
In her own behavior Susan was so moral and proper, and so unlike her own lovable little self, that Grandmother, though she didn’t say a word, couldn’t help thinking, “If this keeps up, I shall have to go away on a visit. Only I know it won’t last.”
And it didn’t last. It was too unnatural. Of course it didn’t last.
After dinner Grandmother asked Susan to go to the store for two spools of black thread.
“Your Grandfather has torn the pocket in his coat,” said she. “Gentilla will wait with me until you come back, for she walks slowly and I am in a hurry.”