“There isn’t anyone else in the house who can run the typewriter,” she said flatly.
This was untrue. Ethel could run it; she had done so several times when I was there. But what was the use of accusing Ethel when her mother wouldn’t believe it anyway? I realized the hopelessness of trying to convince Mrs. Harper of something she didn’t want to believe.
“And further,” continued Mrs. Harper, “I have found that you have not been attending strictly to business. Ethel tells me that you often go over to her room when she is there and stand and talk to her instead of giving your time to my work.”
“Little snake-in-the-grass!” I thought vengefully. I had never gone to her room unless she had called me to do something.
I made up my mind I wouldn’t stay there another minute. I didn’t have to work for such people. I drew myself up stiffly. “If you believe such things, Mrs. Harper,” I said icily, “there can be no business relations between us. I shall not even take the trouble to prove the truth about that letter. I shall go immediately.” And go I did. I knew Mr. Barrett would be very much put out over the affair, because he seemed to think Mrs. Harper had done his school an honor by hiring one of his pupils, but what was I to do? Stay there and be the scapegoat for all Ethel’s sins. Not while I had feet to walk away on.
As I went down the steps I met Ethel coming up. She looked at me with a meaning expression and a triumphant smile. She had kept her word and gotten even with me.
I felt badly over it, of course, for who can lose a good position and not be cut up about it? I suppose I must have looked pretty doleful for a couple of days, because I met Mrs. Anderson, that friend of Nyoda’s, who used to lend us so many “props” for our Winnebago performances, on the street and she asked me right away what was the matter.
“You’re lonesome for those friends of yours,” she went on, without giving me a chance to answer. “I’m lonesome, too,” she went on. “My husband has been in Washington all winter. Come out and spend a few days with me. You used to be pretty good company, if I remember rightly.”
She persuaded me and I went. You remember the Anderson place out on the East Shore, don’t you? We were all out there once last year. Perfect duck of a house all made of soft gray shingles and seven acres of garden and woods around it. I tramped all over the place through the March mud, looking for signs of spring, and had a perfectly glorious time.
“There’s one sign of spring, over there,” said Mrs. Anderson, who was with me on one of my tramps.