Page:Robins - My Little Sister.djvu/45



WHEN I was thirteen years old we lost our ally, Martha Loring. She had been with us since she was fifteen at first a little scullery-maid. Later, she was promoted, and became a person much trusted, in spite of her youth and her love of fun.

We had all sorts of games and private understandings with Martha. She was a genius at furnishing a dolls' house. She got another friend of ours to make us a dresser for Alexandra's kitchen. This other gifted person was Peter, one of Big Klaus's sons. He was almost twenty, and he used to bring the vegetables. We did not know why he could never bring us our presents at the same time perhaps out of fear of the cook, who held strict views upon the wickedness of eating between meals. She was elderly, and very easily annoyed.

She never knew that that clever Peter circumvented her by climbing over the orchard wall with our red apples and with pockets full of the hazelnuts we loved. Martha Loring told us that, if