“Next thing, Fran made a remark that she has hated herself for ever since. We were exploring real early one morning, led on by a bird we couldn’t locate, and we came to the prettiest spot where there is a big willow tree, the kind that you want right away to climb into. Well, we climbed, and there, high up, the funniest bathing suit you ever saw was hanging. It looked like a sack and was made of pieces of different colored cloth.
“‘Well, look at this!’ Fran exclaimed. ‘Here’s the last word in bathing suits. It reminds me of Joseph’s coat of many colors; and notice the combination, will you? Whoever put such a thing as that together? It’s all wet, so somebody has actually worn it!’
“Fran had no idea that anybody would hear her, for we had been all over the place, we thought, but she had hardly gotten the words out of her mouth when we saw a girl hurrying away from a clump of bushes. It was the same girl that I’d seen near our camp. She turned and looked back, and I saw that she was crying a little, but she whisked her head around and got some trees between us in a jiffy. ‘Oh!’ said Fran, ‘wasn’t that awful? Was that the girl you saw, Jean? And I’ve broken her heart by laughing at her bathing suit. I never thought!’
“None of us said a word to make Fran feel any worse about it, but I got to thinking. Of course she had to have something to wear in the lake, and that was all she could put together. They must be awfully poor or something. But she couldn’t have been really mad about it, for she came to camp with a basket of vegetables from their garden, she said, and asked if we wanted to buy any. Fran was there and saw her. She rushed out and said at once that we’d take all she would let us have. Fran was real cordial; and sober as she is, I saw a funny twinkle come into the girl’s eyes when she looked at Fran, who was digging into her big purse. She thanked us very politely and went away at once. She had on a real respectable gingham dress this time, though it was a funny plaid and made in a terribly old-fashioned way.
“I asked her if her folks had any eggs to sell and she said they did sometimes. So she brought us eggs and the next time we had an early bird hunt we saw her in the woods and I went with her to see the wood thrush’s nest. Her name is Greta Klein. Nan is going to ask Jimmy if he ever heard of the Kleins. The name is German, you see, but her English is as good as ours,—oh, I hear you laugh at that. It isn’t saying very much for it, I know. Still, there is a difference when you really can talk correctly, even if you do not always do it.
“We are taking turns at the cooking, as we said we should. So far we have not let Grace do one thing except superintend. The cooks submit the menus to her to see if they have a ‘balanced meal.’ But sometimes if we have a long hike and everybody is tired, we just all pitch in and get up what there is double quick. It is so beautiful here, Mother, and we all love it!”
With a little more Jean ended the long letter to her mother. Greta could have verified what was said about her. She had, indeed, been hurt at Fran’s remark, though the tears had been from a rare breakdown and discouragement, when she had found a place in the bushes to cry it out after her morning swim. A great scolding she had had after the day in the woods. Her mother had asked her if she had gone crazy and Greta had replied that she would have to have a rest once in a while if she had so much to do. “Either that, Mother, or I shall go away to work,” she had said firmly.
Mrs. Klein grew very angry and kept after her constantly with more to do than ever, telling her that she would teach her if she could go off for a whole day with washings to do and cooking and feeding and children under foot. She threatened to beat Greta, but Greta said, “Why can’t you work more with me and not put most of the hard work on me? I’ll work gladly to help earn some money for us; but if Jacob Klein amounted to anything as a farmer we wouldn’t be so poor.”
This enraged Mrs. Klein more than ever. She advanced threateningly toward the girl, till Greta ran out of the house and her mother called to her to come back and iron the clothes for Mrs. Smith. Greta returned, warily, but Mrs. Klein told her to sprinkle the clothes and then mix the bread while she went to see where the children were.
Such was the state of things, with Greta thinking more and more that there was something strange about her relations with the man and woman who had called themselves her parents. Flashes of memory returned, or what she hoped was memory, though dim. She had always recalled some clothing that she had thought was hers as she came back to life after the fever, but she saw the dress being made over for the little boy, then in dresses. How could she ever find out about anything?