CHAPTER I
"NAH! Renestine, cannot you come with the skirt and let me lay it in your trunk? You are dreaming, dreaming all the time. My child, these things must be ready by midnight tonight."
The girl was thirteen years old and her mother was getting her possessions together to send her to America to join a sister who had already gone there and was married and now sent to have her little sister journey to the States, too.
"Oh, Mutterchen, I do not want to go," burst out Renestine. "I
want to stay with you. I do not want to go."
"Nah! Kindlein, stay then," said the mother, keeping her own
grief away from her child.
Just then the door to the little room flew open and three excited girls of about Renestine's own age or perhaps one or two years older, bustled themselves inside.
"Why, Renestine, you are not finished packing yet! We are ready and our trunks are roped and standing at the door for Laaskar to put on the post-wagon when he drives by on his way to the post-house tonight."
The speaker stopped confused seeing that Renestine was silent with no joy in her eyes and the mother sat quietly with flushed checks and said nothing.
"What has happened?" said the three girls in chorus. "You are not going to back out, are you?"
Still Renestine did not look up or make any sign that she was interested in the preparations for her arranged trip. Presently the mother spoke and her voice trembled.