FRIENDS IN NEED
Grandma Sue had been often to the side porch nearest the lane and had
gazed toward the highway wondering why her girl did not return. The
supper had been ready for some time and the specially ordered chocolate
pudding was done to perfection. At last the old woman hurried back into
the kitchen to exclaim: “Wall, I declare to it, if Jenny ain’t fetchin’
someone home to supper. I reckon its Mis’ Dearborn, her teacher, as she
sets sech a store by.”
But, as Dobbin approached at his best speed (for, was he not nearing his
own supper?) the old woman, peering from behind the white muslin curtains
at a kitchen window, uttered an ejaculation of surprise. “Silas Warner,”
she turned wide-eyed toward the old man, who, in carpet slippers, had
made himself comfortable in his tipped back arm chair to read the _Rural
News_.
“Yeap, Susan?” his tone was one of indifferent inquiry. He presumed that
his spouse was merely going to affirm what she had already suspected.
Well, even if that were true, all he would have to put on was the house
coat Jenny had made for him. It never would do to go to the table in
shirt sleeves if teacher—he rose to carry out this indolently formed
decision when he saw his wife tip-toeing across the room toward him, her
finger on her lips. “Shh! Don’t say nothin’, Si!” she whispered. “Jenny’s
left the horse hitched and she’s comin’ right in and trailin’ arter her
is a gal totin’ a hand satchel. Who do you cal’late it can be?”
The old man hastily slipped on the plaid house coat and stood waiting,
trying not to look too curious when their girl burst in with, “Oh,
Granny, Granddad, this is my friend Etta Heldt. You know I told you about
the girl who pares vegetables up at the seminary and who always looked
so—so unhappy.” Jenny did not want to say discontented as she had that
other time. “Well, I’ve found out what makes her unhappy and I’ve fetched
her over to supper. Etta, this is my Grandmother Sue and my Granddaddy
Si.”
The strange girl sent a half appealing, half frightened glance at each of
the old people and then burst into tears.
Jenny slipped a protecting arm about her new friend, as she said by way
of explanation: “Etta’s all upset about something. I’ll take her into my
room to rest a bit, and then I’ll come back and tell you about it.”
Left alone, the elderly couple looked at each other in amazement.
“I reckon that poor girl is like the stray kittens and forlorn dogs our
Jenny fetches home so often,” the old woman said softly. “I never saw
such a hungerin’ sort of look in human eyes afore.”
The old man dropped back into his armed chair and shook his head as much
as to say that their “gal’s” ways were beyond his comprehension. A moment
later that same “gal” reappeared and, going at once to her grandfather,
she knelt at his side and held his knotted work-hardened hand in a
clinging clasp.
“Tut! Tut! Jenny, you’re all a-tremble.” The old man always felt deeply
moved when the girl he loved seemed to be troubled. He placed his free
hand on her curls.
“I reckon you’d better start at the beginnin’. Me’n your grandma here is
powerful curious.”
The girl sprang up. “Granny dear,” she pleaded, “you sit here in your
rocker and I’ll be close between you on this stool. Now I’ll tell you all
and please, please, please say yes.”
The two old people looked lovingly into the eager, uplifted face of their
darling and wondered what the request was to be. They never had denied
their “gal” anything she had asked for in the past, but they had always
been such simple desires and so easily fulfilled. However, there was an
expression in the girl’s lovely face that made them both believe that
this was to be no ordinary request.
Jenny glanced from one to another of her grandparents anxiously, eagerly.
Then, taking a hand of each, she fairly clung to them as her words rushed
and tumbled out, sometimes incoherently, but the picture was clearly
depicted for all that. The two old people could see the forlorn little
Belgian girl coming alone to America to join the mother who had died and
been buried only two days before the child reached San Francisco. Then
the long dreary years in a crowded city orphanage where no one really
cared.
Grandma Sue began to wipe her eyes with one corner of her apron at that
part of the story. She was thinking that their own darling might have
been brought up in just such a place had not Grandpa Si happened to see
the canopied wagon on that long ago day. The girl felt the soft wrinkled
hand quivering in her clasp, and she looked up almost joyfully, for she
believed she had an ally. Then she told of the time when Etta had reached
an age where she could no longer be kept in the institution and how work
had been procured for her paring vegetables at Granger Place Seminary.
Food and a place to sleep were about all that orphan girls were given,
and so, although she had tried and tried to save the little money she
earned, she could not, for she had to buy shoes and clothes.
The old woman nodded understandingly. “What was she savin’ for, dearie?
Anything special?”
“Oh, yes, Grandma Sue, something very special.” Then Jenny told about the
feeble old grandparents far across the sea whose little farm had been
laid waste by the war and how they longed for their granddaughter to be a
comfort in their last days. At this point Grandpa Si took out his big red
bandana handkerchief and blew his nose hard. He was thinking what it
would mean to them if their Jenny was far away and couldn’t get back.
Then, looking at their “gal” shrewdly, he asked, “Jenny, darlin’, what be
yo’ aimin’ at? Yo’ ain’t jest tellin’ this story sort of random-like, be
yo’?”
The girl shook her head. “No! No!” Her tear-brimmed eyes implored first
one and then the other. Then she explained that it would take one hundred
dollars to pay for Etta’s transportation in the steerage.
How the girl pleaded, her sensitive lips quivering. “Think of it, Grandma
Sue, Granddad, only one hundred dollars to take that poor girl to her old
grandparents who love her so. Won’t you let me loan her that much from
the money I’ve made selling eggs and honey? Please, please say that you
will. You’ve always told me that it is mine and oh, I do so want to help
Etta.” Then, as her surprised listeners hesitated, she hurried on:
“She’ll pay it back, every cent, and only the other day, Granddad, you
said you didn’t think the farm was going to be sold, because nothing more
had been heard about it.”
The old man’s eyes questioned his spouse. Still tearful, Grandma Sue
nodded. Then drawing the girl to her, she held her close as she said,
“Silas, I reckon we owe it to the good Lord to help one of His poor
little children.”
“O, Granny! O, Grandpa! However can I thank you?” The flushed, happy girl
sprang up, kissed each of them and ran toward the bedroom to tell the
wonderful news to the waiting Etta.