“Come in! Come right on!” was their welcome.
Jan had been brewing tea. It was steeped now, so that all sat on the floor sipping tea, munching gingersnaps and talking.
“You have been a long time away from your home,” Gale said to Mai-da.
“Oh, yes! A very long time,” Mai-da agreed. “India has been very kind to me but I shall be glad to get back to my home. We ARE going back, you know.” Mai-da’s voice rose. “Everyone believes that. We have great faith in your major.”
As Gale looked at the Chinese girl with her small hands and feet, her round, doll-like face and slender body, she marvelled that she could stand up to the work of a nurse. But Mai-da had endured more than she dreamed.
“Tell us about your home, Mai-da,” Isabelle said.
“Oh, it is really very charming. At least I hope you may say so when you see it.” Mai-da half apologized. “It is at the foot of a hill where big, black pines seem to be marching. It has a high stone wall about it. Ours is an old, old family. Thirty generations have lived there. And we all live together there now, seventy people of us, but some have gone to war. Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandmothers, great-grand-father—they are all there.” She laughed softly.
“Once we nearly lost our home.” Her face sobered. “But perhaps you do not care for sad stories,—only those that are good, beautiful and happy.” Mai-da paused.
“We take life as we find it,” was Gale’s slow reply. “If there is evil in the world, if bad men and women seem to have their way, we want to know about it. But all the time we try to kid ourselves into believing that ‘God is in His heavens—all’s right with the world.’
“And perhaps we’re not kidding ourselves so much after all,” she added softly. “Tell us about the time you nearly lost your home, Mai-da.”