The two girls settled back into their seats, each having one to herself,
for the car was not filled. Bobby was soon laughing and joking in her
usual way.
"If I ride backward like this, will I get to the same place you do,
Eve?" she asked.
"What a ridiculous question!" exclaimed Eve.
"I don't know. One of the 'squabs' was going around yesterday asking
everybody a much more foolish one."
"What was that?"
"Why, what was the largest island in the world before Australia was
discovered?" queried Bobby, giggling.
"Why--why--Newfoundland, perhaps?"
"Nope."
"Madagascar?"
"No," said Bobby, shaking her head.
"England and Scotland together?"
"Huh! You couldn't divide them very well," jeered Bobby. "But that's not
the answer."
"What _was_ the biggest island, then? I give, it up," said Eve.
"Why, Australia, of course," chuckled Bobby. "It was there all the time,
even if it wasn't discovered. Don't you see?"
And so she passed the time without betraying the fact that she had a
very serious reason for wishing to see and talk with Margit Salgo.
When the girls left the train they had no idea that Jim Varey got out of
the smoking car on the wrong side from the station and hid in the
bushes. When the girls started across the fields toward the Sitz place,
the Gypsy dogged them.
In half an hour Eve and her guest reached the house, never suspecting
that they had been the subject of attention.
Bobby was welcome at the farmhouse. She had been there several times
before and from Farmer Sitz down they enjoyed the whimsical,
irrepressible girl. The expectation that she would be "good fun" put
Bobby on her mettle, despite the fact that, secretly, she did not feel
cheerful.
Margit Salgo was better and seemed content enough to occupy the
comfortable bed in the room next Eve's own. She knew Bobby immediately,
and looked a bit disturbed. But Bobby gave her to understand that she
had told nobody about what the Gypsy girl had said the day they were
caught together in the rain.
"But to-night, when the other folks are abed, I want you to tell Eve and
me what you care to about yourself, Margit," said Bobby, when the others
were out of the room. "Perhaps we can help you. All we girls are
interested in you, for, you see, at least seven of us saw you that day
when you ran away from your friends."
"No friends of mine! no friends of mine!" gasped the girl, half in fear.
"All right. You tell us all about it this evening," whispered Bobby and
then whisked out to help Eve with her duties.
Not that she was of much help when she followed Eve out to the clean and
modern barn where Eve had her own six cows to milk, while Otto or the
hired man milked the rest of the herd. But she _was_ amusing.
"Goodness me!" was Bobby's first comment, when she came into the shed
and saw the row of mild-eyed cattle standing in their stalls. "What a
lot of cows--and every one of them chewing gum! Can you beat it?"
"What do you suppose Miss Carrington would say to a row of girls who
chewed their cud as seriously as these bossies?" laughed Eve.
Bobby arched her brows, screwed up her mouth, and replied, in a stilted
manner:
"'Young ladies! I _am_ surprised. Do my eyes deceive me? Do you consider
it polite to wag your jaws like that in public? Fie, for shame!' And
much more to the same purpose," added Bobby, laughing. "Oh, Gee Gee and
her lessons in politeness make me tired. She's so polite herself that
she'd even return a telephone call! Hullo! what's this?"
"A bridle," said Eve, as Bobby took it down from its hook.
"Oh! Sure! You see, I'm a regular green-horn when it comes to country
things. Of course, that's the bit. But say! _how_ do you ever get it
into the horse's mouth? _I'd_ have to wait for him to yawn, I expect,"
and she laughed.
She was great fun at supper, too, to the delight of the family. Otto,
with his queer notions of the English language, made Bobby very gay; and
the young man complained of his difficulties with the English language
just for the sake of encouraging Bobby to correct his speech. Finally
she made up one of her little doggerel verses for him, to Otto's great
delight:
"Otto saw a sausage in a pan,
He smelled a smelt a-frying;
He saw the sheep that had been dyed
Look not the least like dying.
"He saw a hen sit on an egg,
Although she had been set;
Heard Eve complain of being dry
Though plainly she was wet.
"He looked upon the window pane,
Quite sure no pain it had;
Then sighed, and shook his head, and said:
'Dot English, she iss pad!'"
Good Mrs. Sitz had not allowed Margit to get out of bed, but Eve and
Bobby took supper in to the Gypsy girl on a tray. She protested that she
was not an invalid, and after Otto and the old folks had gone to bed,
Margit, well wrapped in shawls and a comforter, came out to sit in a big
chair before Eve's fire.
"I am not like you girls," she said, wistfully. "You go to school and
learn things out of books, eh? Well, I never went to school. And then,
this big America is so different from my country. You do not
understand."
"I guess I can understand something of what you mean," observed Eve,
soberly. "You see, _we_ came from Europe, too."
"Not from Hungary--Austria-Hungary?" cried Margit Salgo, with
excitement.
"No, no. From Switzerland," replied Eve, smiling. "And I was very small
when we came, so I do not remember much about it."
"But I came only last year," explained Margit. "And I was given to the
Vareys----"
"Goodness me! Don't talk that way," interrupted Bobby. "It sounds just
as though you were _owned_ by those Gypsies."
"Well, it is so," said Margit. "I am a Gypsy, too. My father was Belas
Salgo. He was a musician--a wonderful musician, I believe. But he was a
Gypsy. And all the Romany are kin, in some way. These Vareys are English
Gypsies. They are kind enough to me. But I sure believe they hide from
me _who I am_."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Eve, in surprise, although Bobby said
not a word, but listened, eagerly.
"Only my father, you see, was a Gypsy. My mother----"
"Who was she?" asked Bobby, suddenly.
"I--I do not know. But she was not of those people--no. I am sure of
that. She died when I was very little. I went about in many lands with
my father. Then he died--very suddenly. Gypsy friends took me for a
while, but they all said I belonged over here--in America. So they sent
me here finally."
"Your mother was American, then, perhaps?" said Eve, shrewdly.
"That may be it. But these Vareys care nothing about my finding any
relatives, save for one thing," said Margit, shaking her head, gloomily.
"What is that?" asked Bobby.
"If there is money. They believe my mother's people might be rich, or
something of the kind. Then they would make them pay to get hold of me.
But suppose my mother's people do not want me?" slowly added the
fugitive, sadly.
"You are quite sure this is the idea the Vareys have?" asked Bobby.
"Oh, yes. I heard them talking. Then I saw a--a card with a name written
on it. They said, when they were looking at the card, '_She_ will know
all about it. It is to her we must go.' So I know it was a woman's
name."
"But how did you know--or suspect--that the name was that of any teacher
in our school?" demanded Bobby, much to Eve's surprise.
"Ah! I learned much--here a word, there a word--by listening. I knew we
were coming to Centerport for the purpose of getting speech with this
woman whose name had been given them by the Hungarian people who brought
me over here to America."
"But mercy on us!" cried Eve, in vast amazement. "What name is it?"
"She can't explain, for she cannot pronounce it," said Bobby, instantly.
"Grace, or Jim Varey, never spoke the name aloud," said Margit, shaking
her head. "But I know there are eighteen letters in the name. I counted
them."
"And what teacher at Central High has eighteen letters in her name?"
murmured Eve, staring at Bobby.
Bobby took a pencil and wrote Miss Carrington's full name slowly on a
piece of paper. She put it before the Gypsy girl.
"Is _that_ the name?" she asked. "When we spoke together before I had
forgotten that Miss Carrington always spells her middle name out in full
when she writes it at all."
"Miss Carrington!" gasped Eve, and, like Bobby, looked in the Gypsy
girl's face questioningly.