Mary Rose's friendliness had had an effect with the maids as well as the mistresses. When she had found Mrs. Johnson's Hilda crying because she didn't know anyone in Waloo and was so homesick and lonesome she didn't think she'd stay, Mary Rose went down and asked Mrs. Schuneman's Mina if she wouldn't please be a little friendly to a new friend of hers.
Mina had stared at her with her big china blue eyes and said she wouldn't do it for anyone else, but since Mary Rose had come Mrs. Schuneman had let up a little on her everlasting nagging, so she felt she owed her a favor and she'd go up that very evening.
It was Mary Rose who soothed Ida at Mrs. Rawson's when she took it into her head that she could not work in the same building with a Japanese.
"You're a Norwegian, aren't you, Ida? So you're a foreigner just as Mr. Sako is. I suppose he thinks Norwegians are just as strange as you think Japanese. Countries are like families, I guess; you think your own is the best in the world. But I don't believe that God was so good to the Norwegians that he made them the best. He had to divide the good things just as I do when I have any candy. I give some to Aunt Kate and some to Uncle Larry and once I gave a chocolate to you, Ida. I wish you'd try and be polite to Mr. Sako. You don't need to be intimate friends if you don't want to. Just think what a splendid chance you have to learn about Japan."
Ida had stared at her as Lena had done, but she told Mrs. Rawson that she'd changed her mind and she wouldn't leave on account of any Jap, she wouldn't be driven away by any yellow man. She guessed that Norwegians were as good as Japanese any day.
There were many things that puzzled Mary Rose but almost as many that pleased her.
"I've enjoyed living in Waloo," she told Mr. Jerry one evening as they sat under the apple tree. "I didn't think I would at first. I thought I'd die to have to live in a place where there couldn't be any children nor any pets, but everyone's so friendly I mean—almost every one. I do think the Lord did just right when he made people instead of stopping, as he might have done, with horses and lions and monkeys. Did you ever think how strange it would be if there wasn't any you nor any Miss Thorley nor any Mrs. Schuneman nor any Mr. Wells," she spoke the last name in a whisper, "but just animals and vegetables and birds? Sometimes I can't understand how the Lord ever did think of making so many different things. I suppose it was just because He was the Lord. That's what Aunt Kate said when I asked her. But I shall be glad to go to school, Mr. Jerry, because then I'll know some children. You know in Mifflin I played almost all the time with children, Gladys and Mary Mallow and Lucy Norris and Harry Mann and lots of others, but here I don't seem to know anyone but grown-ups. They're very nice grown-ups. I just love you, Mr. Jerry, and your Aunt Mary and the enchanted princess! Do you think you'll ever be able to break the spell of that wicked witch Independence?" anxiously. "You know I don't think she's just happy. Aunt Kate doesn't either. She thinks it's red corpuscles but I really believe it's that Independence. We must do something, Mr. Jerry. And I love Miss Carter and Mr. Strahan and Mrs. Schuneman and Grandma Johnson and everybody else. Isn't a heart the biggest thing? Mine has room for Jenny Lind and George Washington and Solomon and all the other pets I ever had or ever will have and for all the people that were made. It's—it's—" she frowned—"very elastic, isn't it? You have an elastic one, too, Mr. Jerry, or you'd never have taken in George Washington and Solomon and Jimmie Bronson. You're a bachelor, aren't you?"
Mr. Jerry looked quite dazed as he attempted to keep up with Mary Rose's subjects. He sighed as he acknowledged that he was a bachelor.
"Is it because when you look at a girl you see how much she costs?" Mary Rose had worried over that. "Because really Miss Thorley doesn't cost so much. She told Aunt Kate she didn't. She said appearances were deceitful and the most costly looking girls were often the cheapest. Of course, you needn't tell me if you don't want to," remembering, alas, too late, that Miss Thorley had told her that one should not ask personal questions. She drew a deep sigh. "I'm so full, just so plumb full of questions I've got to spill some of them out once in a while."
"To be sure you have!" Mr. Jerry was the most understanding person. "When I was your age I was nothing but a walking question."