“Ah, Juffrouw, don’t be angry—I wanted to know; and my mother knows that I’ve come to ask. Walter told me about Telasco, and the girl that was to die—oh, Juffrouw, tell me if he’s sick! I cannot sleep till I know.”
“That’s none of your business. Go, I tell you! I don’t want strange people standing around the door.”
“For mercy’s sake, Juffrouw!” cried the girl, wringing her hands.
“The girl’s crazy. Put her out, Trudie, and slam the door!”
Trudie began to execute the order. Myntje and Pietje got ready to help her; but the child clung to the balustrade and held her ground.
“Throw her out! The impudent thing!”
“Oh, Juffrouw, I’m not impudent. I will go. Just tell me whether Walter is sick. Tell me, and I will go right now. Just tell me if he’s sick—if, if he’s going—to die.”
The poor child began to weep. Anybody else but those Pieterse women would have been touched at the sight. They were too far up the ladder.
Plainer people, or nobler people would have understood Femke. Feeling, sympathy, is like the money in a gambling-place. It doesn’t come to everybody. There wenches and countesses sit side by side; merely respectable people, who sell shoes made in Paris, are not there.
“I won’t go!” cried Femke. “Oh, God! I won’t go! I will know whether that child is sick!”