“Buena Mujer,” suggested Linda.
“Good woman,” translated Peter.
Linda nodded, running a finger down the leaf over his heart.
“Because she sticks close to you,” she explained. Then startled by the look in Peter’s eyes, she cried in swift change: “Now we are all going to work for a minute. Katy’s spreading the lunch. You take this pail and go to the spring for water, and I shall tidy your quarters for you.”
With the eye of experience Linda glanced over the garage deciding that she must ask for clean sheets for the cot and that the Salvation Army would like the heap of papers. Studying the writing table she heard a faint sound that untrained ears would have missed.
“Ah, ha, Ma wood mouse,” said Linda, “nibbling Peter’s drygoods are you?”
Her cry a minute later answered the question. She came from the garage upon Katherine O’Donovan rushing to meet her, holding a man’s coat at the length of her far-reaching arm.
“I wish you’d look at that pocket. I don’t know how long this coat has been hanging there, but there is a nest of field mice in it,” she said.
Katy promptly retreated to the improvised dining table, seated herself upon an end of it, and raised both feet straight into the air.
“Small help I’ll be getting from you,” said Linda laughingly.