Rebecca's Promise

by Frances R. Sterrett

"I've learned that Frederick Befort is on the factory pay-roll and as Frederick Befort," Granny said slowly. "There is no record of any Count Ernach de Befort. Of course now that the war is over I don't suppose it matters if he is a German. There wouldn't be any secrets for him to learn. Germany wouldn't be interested now in what is being done at the factory."

"But de Befort sounds French," objected Rebecca Mary, who could not see that Joan bore any resemblance to any German child she had ever taught. "Joan was born in Yokohama but that doesn't tell us anything. She certainly isn't a Japanese. It's funny but she doesn't seem to want to tell me what country she did come from. I was stupid enough to lose her nativity card, and when I made out another and asked her what nationality her father was she said he was going to be an American. I told her I wanted to know what he was now and she said he had told her that they would forget what they were before they came to this country. That seemed rather queer. But Joan talks of Paris as much as she does of Berlin. I wish I spoke French half as well as she does."

"She speaks very good German, too. And as you say there is something suspicious in the way she avoids any reference to her nationality. It does seem as if she had been told not to speak of it. I suppose I am a silly prejudiced old woman, but I should rather have Joan and her father almost anything but German. Are you through? Don't you want to take a spin down the River Road before you go home? It's perfect out, a real June day. Do come with me."

Rebecca Mary had no trouble at all to say "Yes, thank you" to that invitation. She called Joan, and they went with Granny to the limousine which was waiting at the curb.

"I wonder if Cinderella's coach went as fast as this?" Joan said as they flew toward the River Road. "We read about Cinderella this very day," she explained to Granny. "It would be more interesting to have rats than engines, wouldn't it? I'd like a pair of glass slippers, too, even if they would break so easy. Wooden ones would be the strongest. That's what they wear at home, you know, wooden ones."

"In Germany, you mean?" asked Granny quickly.

Joan wriggled. "Yes, in Germany they wear wooden ones," she said as quickly, "I've never seen glass slippers, not in London nor Paris nor Vienna nor anywhere. Aren't they any place but in fairy land?" she twisted around to ask.

"Nowhere. No matter how much money you have you can't buy Cinderella's slippers anywhere but in fairy land," Rebecca Mary told her with a sigh as if she, too, would like to find glass slippers somewhere else.

For a while Joan was silent, meditating perhaps on the shoe shops in fairy land with their glass slippers of every size and color.

Granny and Rebecca Mary were silent, also, but they were not thinking of glass slippers as the car swung into the River Road, which is quite the prettiest drive about Waloo. Never before had Rebecca Mary driven over it in a smart limousine with a liveried chauffeur at the wheel. She had walked there times without number, but walking is not like riding in a pneumatic-tired machine, and Rebecca Mary did enjoy the change. She was afraid that there was the making of a snob in her for she did like to ride with Mrs. Peter Simmons better than she liked to walk with a teacher as shabby as she had been. Yes, she was a perfect snob. She laughed as if she found it funny to be a snob. Joan looked up and laughed, too.