Bobby arched her brows, screwed up her mouth, and replied, in a stilted manner:
“‘Young ladies! I am surprised. Do my eyes deceive me? Do you consider it polite to wag your jaws like that in public? Fie, for shame!’ And much more to the same purpose,” added Bobby, laughing. “Oh, Gee Gee and her lessons in politeness make me tired. She’s so polite herself that she’d even return a telephone call! Hullo! what’s this?”
“A bridle,” said Eve, as Bobby took it down from its hook.
“Oh! Sure! You see, I’m a regular green-horn when it comes to country things. Of course, that’s the bit. But say! how do you ever get it into the horse’s mouth? I’d have to wait for him to yawn, I expect,” and she laughed.
She was great fun at supper, too, to the delight of the family. Otto, with his queer notions of the English language, made Bobby very gay; and the young man complained of his difficulties with the English language just for the sake of encouraging Bobby to correct his speech. Finally she made up one of her little doggerel verses for him, to Otto’s great delight:
“Otto saw a sausage in a pan,
He smelled a smelt a-frying;
He saw the sheep that had been dyed
Look not the least like dying.
“He saw a hen sit on an egg,
Although she had been set;
Heard Eve complain of being dry
Though plainly she was wet.
“He looked upon the window pane,
Quite sure no pain it had;
Then sighed, and shook his head, and said:
’Dot English, she iss pad!‘”
Good Mrs. Sitz had not allowed Margit to get out of bed, but Eve and Bobby took supper in to the Gypsy girl on a tray. She protested that she was not an invalid, and after Otto and the old folks had gone to bed, Margit, well wrapped in shawls and a comforter, came out to sit in a big chair before Eve’s fire.
“I am not like you girls,” she said, wistfully. “You go to school and learn things out of books, eh? Well, I never went to school. And then, this big America is so different from my country. You do not understand.”
“I guess I can understand something of what you mean,” observed Eve, soberly. “You see, we came from Europe, too.”
“Not from Hungary—Austria-Hungary?” cried Margit Salgo, with excitement.