The two old people looked lovingly into the eager, uplifted face of their darling and wondered what the request was to be. They never had denied their “gal” anything she had asked for in the past, but they had always been such simple desires and so easily fulfilled. However, there was an expression in the girl’s lovely face that made them both believe that this was to be no ordinary request.
Jenny glanced from one to another of her grandparents anxiously, eagerly. Then, taking a hand of each, she fairly clung to them as her words rushed and tumbled out, sometimes incoherently, but the picture was clearly depicted for all that. The two old people could see the forlorn little Belgian girl coming alone to America to join the mother who had died and been buried only two days before the child reached San Francisco. Then the long dreary years in a crowded city orphanage where no one really cared.
Grandma Sue began to wipe her eyes with one corner of her apron at that part of the story. She was thinking that their own darling might have been brought up in just such a place had not Grandpa Si happened to see the canopied wagon on that long ago day. The girl felt the soft wrinkled hand quivering in her clasp, and she looked up almost joyfully, for she believed she had an ally. Then she told of the time when Etta had reached an age where she could no longer be kept in the institution and how work had been procured for her paring vegetables at Granger Place Seminary. Food and a place to sleep were about all that orphan girls were given, and so, although she had tried and tried to save the little money she earned, she could not, for she had to buy shoes and clothes.
The old woman nodded understandingly. “What was she savin’ for, dearie? Anything special?”
“Oh, yes, Grandma Sue, something very special.” Then Jenny told about the feeble old grandparents far across the sea whose little farm had been laid waste by the war and how they longed for their granddaughter to be a comfort in their last days. At this point Grandpa Si took out his big red bandana handkerchief and blew his nose hard. He was thinking what it would mean to them if their Jenny was far away and couldn’t get back. Then, looking at their “gal” shrewdly, he asked, “Jenny, darlin’, what be yo’ aimin’ at? Yo’ ain’t jest tellin’ this story sort of random-like, be yo’?”
The girl shook her head. “No! No!” Her tear-brimmed eyes implored first one and then the other. Then she explained that it would take one hundred dollars to pay for Etta’s transportation in the steerage.
How the girl pleaded, her sensitive lips quivering. “Think of it, Grandma Sue, Granddad, only one hundred dollars to take that poor girl to her old grandparents who love her so. Won’t you let me loan her that much from the money I’ve made selling eggs and honey? Please, please say that you will. You’ve always told me that it is mine and oh, I do so want to help Etta.” Then, as her surprised listeners hesitated, she hurried on: “She’ll pay it back, every cent, and only the other day, Granddad, you said you didn’t think the farm was going to be sold, because nothing more had been heard about it.”
The old man’s eyes questioned his spouse. Still tearful, Grandma Sue nodded. Then drawing the girl to her, she held her close as she said, “Silas, I reckon we owe it to the good Lord to help one of His poor little children.”
“O, Granny! O, Grandpa! However can I thank you?” The flushed, happy girl sprang up, kissed each of them and ran toward the bedroom to tell the wonderful news to the waiting Etta.