The sugar cookies were good and with them was an apple. The fruit on the Klein place was very limited now. Greta thought of saving it for her brother, but questions would be asked. She would do what Mrs. Smith told her to do. The book she could scarcely wait to open. Suppose something should happen to it before she read it! She was almost tempted to stop before taking home the clothes; but concealing the volume as well as she could, she lugged home the bundles from a rude dock nearer than the one by the willow.
Fortune favored her. Her mother and the children were out in the pasture. Something was the matter with the horse. It lay on the ground, she saw, but she flew to the attic with her treasure and tucked it under the ragged quilt and old comforter that covered the cot where she slept now. Even in the cold winter she often came here, for she was afraid of her father when he came home so intoxicated; and sometimes her mother would bring the smaller children to her there.
She supposed that her father had gone to see if a veterinary surgeon, the “horse-doctor,” would come, and with such opportunity she hesitated about leaving the book. But no, her mother would be angry if she did not start the washing, late as it was. She ran down the stairs and out into the shed for the tubs, unfortunately colliding slightly with Jacob Klein when she opened the shed door quickly and stepped out.
Out of sorts about the horse and irritated by the sight of Greta and her little bump against him, he roared out loudly in German, asking her what she was doing and why she wasn’t doing her work, enforcing his words with a blow that sent her stumbling to the other side of the shed, where she hit her head against the metal tub hanging there and fell unconscious. The man hesitated, with all his brutality, this was the first time that Greta had not been able to dodge a blow. He recalled his wife’s threat, a potent one, but the girl would be up in a minute. What was he going to do about that horse?
When Greta regained consciousness, she was lying on the old cot in the front room and some one was leaning over her. It was the horse-doctor! “There; she’s coming around all right, Mrs. Klein. Tell her to keep her head tied up if she doesn’t want a scar, and give her some more of that medicine. I’m glad Jake told me about her before I started with nothing but medicine for his horse. To tell the truth, Mrs. Klein, I thought he was more anxious about the nag than about the girl. He said that his oldest girl ran into a tub and cut her head and fell down in a faint. How did it happen?”