...

Gertrude looked in.

"I say, Henderson, come on down and help me pack up lunch. We're all
going to Hoddenheim for the day, the whole family, come on."

"For the day?"

"The day, ja. Lily's restless."

Miriam stood looking at her laughing face and listening to her hoarse,
whispering voice. Gertrude turned and went downstairs.

Miriam followed her, cold and sick and shivering, and presently glad to
be her assistant as she bustled about the empty kitchen.

Upstairs the other girls were getting ready for the outing.

13

Starting out along the dusty field-girt roadway leading from the railway
station to the little town of Hoddenheim through the hot sunshine,
Miriam was already weary and fearful of the hours that lay ahead.
They would bring tests; and opportunities for Fraulein to see all her
incapability. Fraulein had thrown her thick gauze veil back over her
large hat and was walking with short footsteps, quickly along the centre
of the roadway throwing out exclamations of delight, calling to the
girls in a singing voice to cast away the winter, to fill their lungs,
fill their hearts with spring.

She rallied them to observation.

Miriam could not remember having seen men working in fields. They
troubled her. They looked up with strange eyes. She wished they were
not there. She wanted the fields to be still--and smaller. Still green
fields and orchards... woods....

They passed a farmyard and stopped in a cluster at the gate.

There was a moment of relief for her here. She could look easily at the
scatter of poultry and the little pigs trotting and grunting about the
yard.

She talked to the nearest German girl, of these and of the calves
standing in the shelter of a rick, carefully repeating the English
names. As her eyes reached the rick she found that she did not know what
to say. Was it hay or straw? What was the difference? She dreaded the
day more and more.

Fraulein passed on leading the way, down the road hand-in-hand with
Emma. The girls straggled after her.

14

Making some remark to Minna, Miriam secured her companionship and
dropped a little behind the group. Minna gave her one eager beam from
behind her nose, which was shining rosily in the clear air, and they
walked silently along side by side bringing up the rear.

Voices and the scrabble of feet along the roadway sounded ahead.

Miriam noticed large rounded puffs of white cloud standing up sharp and
still upon the