Vida Sherwin came in after school, with Miss Ethel Villets, the town librarian.  Miss Sherwin’s optimistic presence gave Carol more confidence.  She talked.  She informed the circle “I drove almost down to Wahkeenyan with Will, a few days ago.  Isn’t the country lovely!  And I do admire the Scandinavian farmers down there so:  their big red barns and silos and milking-machines and everything.  Do you all know that lonely Lutheran church, with the tin-covered spire, that stands out alone on a hill?  It’s so bleak; somehow it seems so brave.  I do think the Scandinavians are the hardiest and best people——­”

“Oh, do you think so?” protested Mrs. Jackson Elder.  “My husband says the Svenskas that work in the planing-mill are perfectly terrible—­so silent and cranky, and so selfish, the way they keep demanding raises.  If they had their way they’d simply ruin the business.”

“Yes, and they’re simply ghastly hired girls!” wailed Mrs. Dave Dyer.  “I swear, I work myself to skin and bone trying to please my hired girls—­when I can get them!  I do everything in the world for them.  They can have their gentleman friends call on them in the kitchen any time, and they get just the same to eat as we do, if there’s, any left over, and I practically never jump on them.”

Juanita Haydock rattled, “They’re ungrateful, all that class of people.  I do think the domestic problem is simply becoming awful.  I don’t know what the country’s coming to, with these Scandahoofian clodhoppers demanding every cent you can save, and so ignorant and impertinent, and on my word, demanding bath-tubs and everything—­as if they weren’t mighty good and lucky at home if they got a bath in the wash-tub.”

They were off, riding hard.  Carol thought of Bea and waylaid them: 

“But isn’t it possibly the fault of the mistresses if the maids are ungrateful?  For generations we’ve given them the leavings of food, and holes to live in.  I don’t want to boast, but I must say I don’t have much trouble with Bea.  She’s so friendly.  The Scandinavians are sturdy and honest——­”

Mrs. Dave Dyer snapped, “Honest?  Do you call it honest to hold us up for every cent of pay they can get?  I can’t say that I’ve had any of them steal anything (though you might call it stealing to eat so much that a roast of beef hardly lasts three days), but just the same I don’t intend to let them think they can put anything over on me!  I always make them pack and unpack their trunks down-stairs, right under my eyes, and then I know they aren’t being tempted to dishonesty by any slackness on my part!”

“How much do the maids get here?” Carol ventured.

Mrs. B. J. Gougerling, wife of the banker, stated in a shocked manner, “Any place from three-fifty to five-fifty a week!  I know positively that Mrs. Clark, after swearing that she wouldn’t weaken and encourage them in their outrageous demands, went and paid five-fifty—­think of it! practically a dollar a day for unskilled work and, of course, her food and room and a chance to do her own washing right in with the rest of the wash.  How much do you pay, Mrs. Kennicott?”