“I know,” answered Molly, who had heard her. “I understand German, for we had a good woman that helped us for a long time when one of the children was little and Mother was not strong. She started me because she loved to talk her own language with some one, and I’ve kept it up. But you haven’t a bit of a German accent and talk English as well as we do. How does it happen?”
“That is what I have been wondering about for a long time. After this sickness I had to be taught German, but could talk English. My mother said that I had been bewitched—that is what it would mean in English. She taught me to read the German newspapers that Jacob Klein has—I haven’t called him Father since I found he wasn’t my father. Then I found an old German Bible that I supposed was my great-grandmother’s, from the date in it; but it was Jacob’s grandmother’s, of course. There is better German in that, and it has been a help—to stand things, I mean.” Greta’s eyes filled with tears, but she dashed them away, saying, “I’m sorry to complain this way to you. Please do not tell any one.”
“I can’t promise that,” smiled Molly, “but if you feel the same way after I tell you a few things—all right. But don’t you remember anything that happened before this time that you were sick?”
“I know that I have been at school somewhere, and that I have seen people like you somewhere and of course I am feeling pretty sure that there is something queer about all this. Why should I know these things if I had always been with these people? Yet it has been pretty well told me all about my mother’s people and how my aunt Gretchen always thought so much of me before she died and how my grandmother said I would make a good little worker and would help my mother.” Greta stopped with a whimsical smile. “I have, all right,” she added, “but I have had a chance to talk English every summer with the people that come to the cottages at the other end of the lake, and this summer a lady gave me a lovely book, all about girls like you.”
“Thank you for telling us about yourself, Greta. Now let me tell you what I heard this woman that you have been living with say.”
“‘This woman that you have been living with’?” thought Greta. “What does this girl mean?”
“She did not say much, and in the simplest German, but she said enough to make me listen to the rest,” continued Molly, going on to describe the scene, telling how the girls happened to stop at the place.
“Yes, that was Mother,” said Greta in reply to Molly’s question, after a detailed description of the woman whom she had seen.
“Well,” said Molly, “I saw a large stone by some bushes. There was a sort of tangle in that corner of the yard, near a pasture fence.” Greta nodded. She knew. “There was an old lilac bush and a syringa bush in my way, but I peeped around them to see who was crying and if anybody needed help. But here this woman was lying, almost on her face, her hands clutching the grass between some little bushes that were planted in a row, Greta. Then it was that I noticed the big stone in the corner and a row of small stones that started from it as if someone had been going to make a flower bed, you know. These all must be to mark the place, Greta.
“She was sort of moaning, in German, ‘my Greta, my Greta, my little Greta,’ and then she began to talk to her, just as I was going to slip away, not to intrude; and she wasn’t hurt, I could see. But she went on, ‘Your father never meant to kill you when he hit you that time, and I couldn’t see him hung, could I? So here you are without a stone with your name on it and not a prayer said over you when we hid you here!’ She burst out sobbing loudly then, but by that time I thought I ought to hear if she said anything more, and presently she was asking, ‘Wasn’t it better for no one to know, when the little girl came and could take your place, and her people were all dead in the storm?’”
Here Jean slipped an arm around Greta, who was leaning toward Molly, listening tensely. “Oh—then the real Greta is buried there, and I am the little girl!”
“Yes—the ‘kleines Mädchen.’ When I got home last night, Greta, I wrote down every German expression that I could remember, so I could swear to it if necessary. And I lay awake thinking it out nearly half the night. There wasn’t anything else, except that she kept sobbing and repeating the little expressions she had used, Greta’s name, and asking if she blamed her mother. Did you ever think that you might have been kidnapped?”
“Yes. I made a wonderful story about myself and then I saw how silly it was. I even belonged to the German or English nobility, though as I couldn’t speak good German the first wasn’t likely. But it must be true that my people are dead in a storm, for anything that my mother said in that way would have to be true. Oh, to think of it! I knew I was different and didn’t belong! I’d rather be all alone than to be the daughter of that man—and poor Mother! She isn’t very bright, girls, just stupid about some things, and loves that dreadful man! What can I do? Oh, thank you, Miss Molly, for caring to tell me about it. It is a wonderful thing for me that you girls came here this summer!”
But Greta put her head in her hands, and Jean patted her shoulder. “We’ll have to think it out,” said Jean. “I told Molly that if it happened in an accident, maybe the poor woman wasn’t so bad to want to save her husband. But what was worst was about you, especially since you looked unhappy and tired out. Oh, yes, Molly, you forgot to tell Greta one thing, how she said she wasn’t making the girl that took the real Greta’s place have a happy time and was making her work for Greta’s little brother and sister. She has some crazy idea like that!”
“As long as that grave is there, it could be proved that I am not Greta, I suppose. At least, they’d have to explain it.”
“But perhaps they could take—take it all away, if they had any hint that you knew,” said Molly.
“That is so. I will have to go back and wait. I always wondered why Mother had started a flower-bed and those rose-bushes there, but I never dared ask. I have a memory of a storm in the woods, or it seemed like that.”
As Greta spoke, a blinding flash of lightning was followed by a terrific crash of thunder. “My sakes!” exclaimed Jean. “Let’s get inside. Oh, I hope that the girls are almost back!”
The three of them had been too much interested in the story which Molly was relating to notice how black the sky had become. Nan rushed to the door to call them, but saw that it was unnecessary. The bolt of lightning so near had been sufficient warning. Greta went to work with them to close all the windows and door and drag the cots in from the sleeping porch. The room presented a disheveled appearance by the time they were through, but they were concerned only with the storm. Jean jumped with the next crash, but Greta, used to taking care of frightened little children in storms, smiled at her and took her hand, “What did you say your motto is?” she asked.
“Thanks, Greta. I’ll remember, but I’m terribly uneasy about the girls. If they had taken the boat, they could get away from the trees.”
“But look at the lake, Miss Jean.”
“Just Jean and Molly and Nan, Greta,” said Jean, as she looked out at an angry lake, whipped by a wind. The trees were bending now before a great wind. Whirls of leaves and broken branches began to fly. Then Nan cried, “Here they come,” and ran to open the door for the fleeing girls, who ran through a blinding downpour and against a strong wind.
“It’s a regular whirlwind, and I hear a terrible roaring, girls,” said Grace, out of breath. “Is everything closed tight?”
Nan, Jean and Molly were using their combined strength to shut the door after the dripping girls had come in, but Greta answered. “We shut up everything, Miss French.”
There was nothing to do but to wait results. By this time they all knew that a storm of more than usual intensity was upon them. “‘Sans peur,’ girls,” Grace reminded them, her chin raised and her eyes looking out upon the whirling scene outside. “I’m glad that we reached shelter and are together.”
“I’m scared,” said Phoebe, “and I don’t care wh
o knows it!” She was standing by Leigh Dudley, who had drawn a chair into the middle of the room and had sunk into it as quite exhausted after their mad rush through the woods. Leigh reached up with a smile and drew Phoebe down into her lap. “Sit down Phoebe-bird. It doesn’t do any good to be scared, but I’m not feeling any too safe myself.”
The two girls cuddled together and shut their eyes, but Jean and Greta stood together, looking out, and Greta whispered, “The good God can save us if it is best.” Not in vain had Greta read that German Bible.
Crash went a tree, just hitting the sleeping porch, and the little house shook. But the worst of the storm had passed them by in a few minutes from the time they heard the roaring sound, so rapidly was the work of destruction done. It was wind rather than lightning which had been the greatest menace. Pouring rain continued for some time—and then the sun came out!
“Now is the time to be thankful, girls,” said Grace, “but I hope that the boys are all right. If I’m not mistaken, some cyclone went by us and we’ll hear of damage done by it.”
Uneasily, the girls went about opening windows, looking out to see what damage had been done to the sleeping porch, or going out into their cleared dooryard to see if their prettiest trees had suffered. Branches lay on the ground, whipped from the trees. It was a small elm that had hit the porch. “Girls, if that tree hadn’t been actually lifted by the wind, I don’t believe it could have reached us,” said Jean. “My father said that they particularly tried to see that no tree could hit us if a storm felled it, no big one, I mean. We have shade enough as it is.”
The girls stood looking about. “I’m glad that the boys built their shack in a pretty well cleared place, too,” said Nan, who could scarcely help worrying about Jimmy. Greta was thinking of home and the children. They were often rude to her, in the atmosphere of scolding and criticism which made Greta’s life wretched. But they also depended upon her for a great deal and occasionally, when away from their mother’s disapproval, showed her a little affection, especially the youngest child.
Still excited by the character of the storm, the girls ran around in the wet woods near by. They found the tree which had been struck by lightning before Nan, Jean and Greta had gone into the house and they were startled to find how near it had been. But when they looked across the lake, beyond the camp’s small bay and where the woods stretched toward Greta’s home, they saw the most damage. Trees lay prostrate near the shore. Branches and drift tossed upon the still active waves. “I must hurry home at once,” said Greta. “The storm has gone that way.”
“I’ll go with you,” declared Jean, thinking of the motto, for the thought of going frightened her and she would have preferred to know what had happened to Jimmy Standish, her friend, Billy Baxter and the rest of the boys. But she and Molly and Nan had gotten Greta into coming for breakfast. If the family were unharmed by the storm and Greta had a scolding or worse, she would stand by her.
“I’ll go, too,” said Molly; but Grace heard them.
“Wait, girls,” said Grace. “I think that I hear the boys calling.”
The girls listened.
“Wah-hoo-oo-oo-oo-oo!” came the long-drawn call.
“Oo-ey, oo-ey, oo-ey,” answered Grace, all smiles, for that was Jimmy.
In a few minutes several boys came crashing through the bushes and brush, not caring how the wet drops sprinkled them right and left. “Everybody all right?” asked Jimmy, who was in the lead, Billy Baxter right behind him. His quick eyes took in Grace and Nan first and traveled over the rest with some relief.
“Yes,” answered Grace. “No one was out in the storm and the little cabin stood; but some of us got inside just in time. I should have had more sense than to go off for a hike and breakfast when it felt like a storm, even if we did not notice any signs when we left so early. I’ve been wondering about you.”
“All of us have,” Jean added, “and Greta is worrying about her folks across the lake. This is Greta Klein. Greta, this is Nan’s brother, Jimmy. He’s in charge at the boys’ camp, just as Grace French is here.”
“I was certainly thankful to hear you call, Jimmy,” said Grace, while Greta and Jimmy acknowledged the introduction after a fashion, for matters were on an informal footing. Jean had merely announced facts.
“We would have been around when it first began to look like a bad storm, but we were off, too, out of sight, on the other shore of the peninsula to begin with, then ’way around in the woods. Like you, we started early and there is a little fisherman’s shack there. We made it to our camp, though, but we had to stay till she blew over then. As soon as we could, we ran out where we could see your roof and it was still on. So we hoped that you were all right. Gee-whilikins, didn’t it get dark?”
“Jimmy brought ‘first aid’ and everything,” said Dan Pierce. “Would Greta like to have us go around with her?”
“That is a fine idea, Dan,” said Grace, and Billy wished that he had thought of it. “I thought of going around with Greta, as soon as we knew about your camp. I was sure that you would get some sort of a message through pretty soon, unless you were all blown away. Suppose you three boys come with Greta and me, and maybe Molly, and Jean. They spoke of going. Do you think that you could stand it, girls, if anything has happened there?” This question was spoken in a lower tone, for the benefit of Jean and Molly only.
“‘Sans peur,’ Grace,” said Jean stoutly. “Get Molly to tell you all about everything while we go.”
“Couldn’t we go in the boats now?” asked Molly, but caught herself short. “Oh, girls, we never thought to look and see if the boats are there yet!”
They were not, as the assembled company soon found out when they ran around to the lake side of the cottage. There was no sign either of Greta’s boat or theirs. “Our canoes were high and dry and under shelter,” said Jimmy, “but the row-boats and the little motor are goners as far as we know.”
“Some of them may turn up,” hopefully inserted Billy. “Let’s go, Jimmy.”
“All right, kid, when the girls are ready. By the way, Grace, tell them all to look out for trees or branches that might be ready to fall. We’ll have to go on the edge of the woods and through it in some places, isn’t that so, Greta?”
“Yes, sir.”
Senior Jimmy smiled at the “sir,” then happened to think. Yes, he was out of school, and he’d be in the office with his father till he earned enough money, in a year or so, to start to college. Say, he was grown up, after all.
“Greta,” asked Molly, soon after they started through the woods, “how old were you when you were ‘sick’?”
“It was four years ago, and Mother says that I am sixteen.”
“You don’t look any older than I do, and I’m fifteen. Well, yes, you do look older in one way, but then you’ve done so much hard work, I guess.”
The going was difficult. They scarcely stopped to examine the curious freaks of the storm in the woods. Afterward they learned that there was a comparatively small area damaged by the “twister,” though the storm was general. Jimmy said that he thought the twister must have stooped and risen again, in an erratic fashion, to fell some trees, take off the tops of others and cut almost a path before it in places.
It was some time before they came into sight of the Klein house. There it stood, as ramshackle as ever and with the additional loss of the roof over Greta’s attic. As they reached the road which ran between the woods and the place, Greta ran, the rest following as rapidly as they could.
The yard was strewn with rubbish and a few excited chickens ran about as Greta appeared; but she dashed into the house, calling to see where her mother and the children were. There was no response. Greta looked anxious, as she came from the rear of the house to say that no one was downstairs.
Jimmy insisted on accompanying Greta upstairs to see if they could be there, hurt, perhaps, when the roof went off.
They found the attic pretty well demolished and the ceiling had fallen in the bedroom below; but there were no signs of any one having been there when it happened. “We’ll look to see if the horse and the old wagon are here,” said Greta, running down the stairs and outdoors. “Maybe they started away before the storm began. Mother was very anxious last night and seemed to think that—her husband—was in trouble.”
There lay the explanation of the absence. Neither horse nor wagon were to be found. The dogs were gone. The lone cow in the pasture was unhurt. “She probably wakened up early,” said Greta, “and just went to the village to see what had become of him. Thank you all for coming with me. I’ll just wait here and straighten up the best I can till they come. It was a good thing they went, unless they might have gotten caught in the storm.”
“I don’t think we should leave you here alone, Greta, to find out later what did happen. Billy and I can walk across to the village and find out if they are in any trouble. Where would she be likely to go?”
“There is one woman there that Mother stops to see when she goes to town. If there were any trouble about—him—she would ask Mrs.—well, let me write the name for you. It’s a long German name. I hate to have you take all that trouble, and the long walk after all your hiking, too. I just don’t know what to do this time.”
“We’re going, Greta. It is the only thing to do.”
“I’ll make some coffee for you first.”
“No, we had breakfast and we’ll get something in town. Honest, we’ll do it.”
The discussion came to an end suddenly, for the attention of everyone was diverted by the appearance of a light buggy and a toiling horse that was splashing through mud and water on the dirt road. The man who was driving was leaning out to look at the damage of the storm and viewing with surprise the number of people in the front yard. “Hello,” he called, “is Greta Klein there?”
The Third Girl Detective Page 113