The Roselawn radio girls had become acquainted with this queer, little, half wild and wholly untaught child through certain odd circumstances related in detail in “The Radio Girls of Roselawn”; and Henrietta had proved to be both an amusing and a helpful child. She was particularly enamored of Jessie Norwood because of the latter’s kindness to her, and because Jessie had aided in recovering the freedom of Henrietta’s cousin, Bertha Blair, who had been restrained illegally so that she might not testify in an important court case in which Jessie’s father was interested.
It was of Bertha Blair that the Roselawn girl now questioned little Henrietta.
“Did Bertha go to see that lady about a place, where she could have you with her, Henrietta?”
“She went once, but the woman was out. And when we went the second time, Billy Foley had burned a hole in my nice silk dress and my stockings got tored, and I looked a sight. So the lady says: ‘Who’s that awful little thing you’ve got with you, girl?’ So we didn’t get that job.”
“Oh, dear, me! How unfortunate,” sighed Jessie. “And Mrs. Curtis really wanted young people about her. The doctor said it would be the best thing in the world for her.”
“Huh!” said the abrupt Henrietta. “She didn’t want any raggedy kid like me. I was sorry about the taffeta silk, Miss Jessie.”
“I am sorry, too, that you were not more careful,” Jessie told her. “How did Billy come to burn the dress?”
“With a hot poker. I was back to him. And he burned a patch of me, too!”
Had Amy Drew heard that she would have screamed. But Jessie knew that the odd little Henrietta had no intention of being comical. The hole burned in the only silk dress she had ever owned was a tragedy to Henrietta’s mind.
“Can’t it be mended?” Jessie asked.