Selina stared at her rather curiously, as though startled. Afterward she said to Dirk, aside, “But I thought you said she was ugly!”
“Well, she is, or—well, isn’t she?”
“Look at her!”
Mattie Schwengauer was talking to Meena Bras, the houseworker. She was standing with her hands on her ample hips, her fine head thrown back, her eyes alight, her lips smiling so that you saw her strong square teeth. A new cream separator was the subject of their conversation. Something had amused Mattie. She laughed. It was the laugh of a young girl, care-free, relaxed, at ease.
For two days Mattie did as she pleased, which meant she helped pull vegetables in the garden, milk the cows, saddle the horses; rode them without a saddle in the pasture. She tramped the road. She scuffled through the leaves in the woods, wore a scarlet maple leaf in her hair, slept like one gloriously dead from ten until six; ate prodigiously of cream, fruits, vegetables, eggs, sausage, cake.
“It got so I hated to do all those things on the farm,” she said, laughing a little shamefacedly. “I guess it was because I had to. But now it comes back to me and I enjoy it because it’s natural to me, I suppose. Anyway, I’m having a grand time, Mrs. De Jong. The grandest time I ever had in my life.” Her face was radiant and almost beautiful.
“If you want me to believe that,” said Selina, “you'll come again.”
