ow.

Mary Rose's friendliness had had an effect with the maids as well as
the mistresses. When she had found Mrs. Johnson's Hilda crying because
she didn't know anyone in Waloo and was so homesick and lonesome she
didn't think she'd stay, Mary Rose went down and asked Mrs. Schuneman's
Mina if she wouldn't please be a little friendly to a new friend of
hers.

Mina had stared at her with her big china blue eyes and said she
wouldn't do it for anyone else, but since Mary Rose had come Mrs.
Schuneman had let up a little on her everlasting nagging, so she felt
she owed her a favor and she'd go up that very evening.

It was Mary Rose who soothed Ida at Mrs. Rawson's when she took it into
her head that she could not work in the same building with a Japanese.

"You're a Norwegian, aren't you, Ida? So you're a foreigner just as
Mr. Sako is. I suppose he thinks Norwegians are just as strange as you
think Japanese. Countries are like families, I guess; you think your
own is the best in the world. But I don't believe that God was so good
to the Norwegians that he made them the best. He had to divide the
good things just as I do when I have any candy. I give some to Aunt
Kate and some to Uncle Larry and once I gave a chocolate to you, Ida.
I wish you'd try and be polite to Mr. Sako. You don't need to be
intimate friends if you don't want to. Just think what a splendid
chance you have to learn about Japan."

Ida had stared at her as Lena had done, but she told Mrs. Rawson that
she'd changed her mind and she wouldn't leave on account of any Jap,
she wouldn't be driven away by any yellow man. She guessed that
Norwegians were as good as Japanese any day.

There were many things that puzzled Mary Rose but almost as many that
pleased her.

"I've enjoyed living in Waloo," she told Mr. Jerry one evening as they
sat under the apple tree. "I didn't think I would at first. I thought
I'd die to have to live in a place where there couldn't be any children
nor any pets, but everyone's so friendly I mean--almost every one. I
do think the Lord did just right when he made people instead of
stopping, as he might have done, with horses and lions and monkeys.
Did you ever think how strange it would be if there wasn't any you nor
any Miss Thorley nor any Mrs. Schuneman nor any Mr. Wells," she spoke
the last name in a whisper, "but just animals and vegetables and birds?
Sometimes I can't understand how the Lord ever did think of maki