As the other girl did not reply, Jenny continued: “I’m not sure certain that I can loan you my money, of course. I have been saving and saving it for two years so that I could add it to the money grandpa had if we needed it to buy Rocky Point Farm, but the farm hasn’t been put on the market, granddad says, and so I guess we can spare it for awhile.”
Suddenly and most unexpectedly the girl at her side burst into tears. “Oh, oh, how sweet and good you are to me. Nobody, nowhere has ever been so kind, not since I came to this country looking for mother. When they told me she was dead and had been buried two days before I got here, and all her belongings sold to pay for the funeral, nobody was kind. They just tagged me with a number and sent me with a crowd of other children out to an orphan asylum. And there it was just the same: no one knew me from any of the rest of the crowd.”
There were also tears in her listener’s eyes.
“Poor, poor Etta, and here I’ve been brought up on love. It doesn’t seem fair, someway.” Then slipping an arm comfortingly about her companion, Jenny said brightly: “Let’s keep hoping that you can borrow my money. Look, Etta, we’re coming to the highway now, and that long, long lane beyond the barred gate leads right up to my home. Don’t cry any more, dearie. I just know that my grandfolks will help you, somehow. You’ll see that they will.”
Thus encouraged, the forlorn Etta took heart and, after wiping away the tears which had brought infinite relief to her long pent-up emotions, she turned a wavering smile toward Jenny.
“I’ll never forget what all you’re trying to do for me. Never. Never,” she ended vehemently. “And I’m hoping I’ll have the chance some day to make up for it.”
“All the reward that I want is to have you get home to your grandfolks and be as happy with them as I am with mine,” Jenny called brightly as she leaped out of the wagon to open up the barred gate.
CHAPTER V.
FRIENDS IN NEED
Grandma Sue had been often to the side porch nearest the lane and had gazed toward the highway wondering why her girl did not return. The supper had been ready for some time and the specially ordered chocolate pudding was done to perfection. At last the old woman hurried back into the kitchen to exclaim: “Wall, I declare to it, if Jenny ain’t fetchin’ someone home to supper. I reckon its Mis’ Dearborn, her teacher, as she sets sech a store by.”
But, as Dobbin approached at his best speed (for, was he not nearing his own supper?) the old woman, peering from behind the white muslin curtains at a kitchen window, uttered an ejaculation of surprise. “Silas Warner,” she turned wide-eyed toward the old man, who, in carpet slippers, had made himself comfortable in his tipped back arm chair to read the Rural News.