Free 02 Jo of the Chalet School by Elinor Brent-Dyer Page A

nodded emphatically. ‘But yes, Madame. I heard her.’
    ‘Gisela, would you ring for Marie?’ asked Miss Bettany.
    Gisela rang, and presently Marie appeared. At first when she was questioned, she declared that she had no idea as to what the two missing children could have been talking about. She was very angry with Eigen, for he should have been in the kitchen, helping her, and she had seen nothing of him all the morning. Then, after a little more urging from her mistress, she suddenly remembered that the dog of a neighbour of theirs had had litter of pups, and she had heard that the little things were to be drowned that day.
    ‘If that is what Eigen was telling Joey,’ said Miss Bettany with great decision, ‘then that is where they are!
    But she had no right to go off without telling me!’ Then a sudden though struck her. ‘Is it that beautiful St Bernard dog?’
    ‘Yes, mein Fraulein ,’ replied Marie. ‘They are too poor to keep the pups, for they eat much ; and, indeed, they spoke of shooting Zita.’
    ‘Oh, what a shame!’ The Bettanys all adored animals, and the same spirit which must have sent Jo off in an attempt to save the puppies boiled up in her sister now. ‘Poor Zita! If they can’t afford to keep her, why don’t they sell her to someone who can?’
    Marie stood respectfully silent. It was not for her to speak, but she thought that if Madame had seven children to clothe and feed, and a husband who could earn money only during the summer, since he was a cowherd, she would not have been so indignant over the proposed shooting of a mere big dog who ate far more than she ought to do Of course, if the pups had arrived during the tourist season, they would most likely have sold, in which case there would have been plenty to buy food for all. But Zita had not done what was expected of her, and so they must go. That was a matter of course.
    Madge, looking up, guessed what was passing through the girl’s mind. ‘Are they very poor, Marie?’ she asked gently.
    ‘They can live, mein Fraulein ,’ replied Marie dryly.
    A wild shriek of ‘Joey! Joey!’ broke across the conversation, and Madge, running to the window, beheld her small sister and Eigen racing madly along. Eigen looked much as usual, but Joey was a sight to behold.
    She was soaking, and her hair was on end. Her face was splashed with mud; her gym tunic was torn, so that a great triangular piece hung down in front. She was crying, too – an unusual thing for her; and in her arms was a soft little roly-poly ball, which she cuddled to her.
    Leaving the people in the study to do as they chose, Madge fled to the door, and caught the child in her arms. ‘Joey! How could you?’ she cried reproachfully.
    ‘Oh, Madge! Oh, Madge!’ sobbed Joey exhaustedly; ‘I could only save him! The rest were all drowned!
    Oh, Madge! Such little young things! But I pulled him out and saved him! And, oh! the poor old mother!
    If you’d seen her eyes! Oh, I can keep him, can’t I?’ She thrust the little wet bundle against her sister.
    ‘He’s such a baby!’
    ‘Hush, Joey! Don’t cry so, darling! Yes; of course you shall keep him! Eigen! Go and change at once, and tell Marie to give you some hot coffee! -Come, Joey! Come and have a bath!’
    They all flew round. An hour later, Joey, cleansed and in her right mind, with her new possession cuddled up to her, told her story to an attentive audience.

    Eigen had told her about the two-week-old pups, and their destiny, and she had torn off with him as soon as prayers were over. They had arrived too late to do anything but save this last pup, even though they had scrambled over rocks and through thorns to do it. Joey, clutching the poor baby-thing to her, had harangued the man fiercely in a mixture of French, German and English, which luckily he had not understood. She had cried all the way home over the memory of poor Zita’s frantic grief; and Eigen had cried too – mainly out of sympathy, Madge