66 THE GARDEN OF A 



father was fastening his horse in the stable he heard 

 loud talking in shrill feminine accents. The voice 

 said in English, the home language now having been 

 dropped as an undesirable reminder of the past, 

 " Veil, if you don't tink I keeps tings right and cooks 

 to suit, den I can do vitout you altogeder. I vill 

 take the childrens avay and keep bourders, and I can 

 do many oder tings and have no need of you. Dis 

 besides, I vill see to it you shall send no more of your 

 vages to dat old voman who liked not me. Let 

 oder peoples keep her." 



The " old woman " was Peter's mother, to whom he 

 sent the tiny stipend that kept her from being a 

 public charge. Karen somehow did manage to 

 stop the next remittances, and later it was rumoured 

 about by a fellow-countryman that the mother had 

 died in the Dutch equivalent of the Poor House. 



Then Peter staid outdoors except absolutely at 

 night, scarcely tasting his cold, unpalatable food, and 

 the crisis came rapidly. 



In a few days, owing to an emergency, Aunt Lot 

 asked Mrs. Schmidt to do a little washing for pay, 

 of course, as usual. She was always paid as if she 

 had been a wholly outside worker. The response 

 was a curt refusal owing to the fact that she was 

 making Trina a new dress for "a big dance over 



