“Why, Godamighty, Puss, our boys ain’t been home in ten years—Carl’s ten-thousand miles away in Mexico and Phil’s somewhere in China in the marines, married to a Chinee, for all we know. We never hear except on Christmas. The girls both are raising families in Ioway.”

Marcia’s and Lena’s eyes glowed with the pleasant but improbable prospect of little Chinese cousins to play with.

“Anyway, we’ve brought our Flinch deck if we don’t have anybody to play with,” said Marcia with a sigh of resignation. “We can play Muggins.”

“Sure you can play Muggins, and Pit and Old Maid and croquignole,” agreed Uncle Louie. “Your Aunt Betts’ll teach you how to churn, too, and there’s berrying and horse riding. You won’t be homesick.”

“Lena will,” said Marcia, a little jealously. “Lena’s always homesick.”

Reminded of this talent, Lena screwed up her face to cry but was as yet too interested in the ride to manage any tears. They would come later.

Uncle Louie took a different route going down to Elmville than they had coming up because he had to stop on farm business in both New Amsterdam and Willardville. New Amsterdam had windmills and a Dutch Reformed Church and when they stopped in the Ice Cream Kitchen, the waitress talked Dutch. “What nationality are we?” asked Marcia. “Dutch and Welsh and English,” Uncle Louie said. “A good mixture.”

The town blacksmith was a relation, so they went to the forge down a cobblestone alley between two stores. Uncle Louie let them come inside the charred, dark stable to watch the sparks fly while the smith, Uncle John, hammered out a shoe. This was a wonderful and terrifying spot, like a cave in a goblin woods with the floor half earth, half boards, black with pitch and covered with sawdust. The big furnace in the middle seemed like hellfire, spitting out brimstone, growling and roaring so that the smith was like Satan himself, dealing in fire and darkness. There was a half-loft over the back end of the place with a cot on it, a washstand and a pine corner cupboard. Little crescent windows high under the eaves let in light and permitted barn swifts to flutter in and out.

“Step up to my parlor, Louie, and have some schnapps,” Uncle John roared above the din of his hammering, so Uncle Louie helped the girls up the homemade pine ladder to the loft. Uncle John, it seems, was a bachelor and though he had a room at some niece’s house, he preferred to stay mostly in his own shop. The children sat on the cot, speechless with pleasure. They looked down in the pit below at Uncle John, wondering whether he was really black or whether it washed off. Certainly the black mop of oily curls and the vast black moustache would not come off. A half-grown boy ran around barefoot, fetching water and doing errands, and he too was either black or wonderfully dirty. Lena decided after scientific observation that this was dirt since he kept gaping up at her and then wiping his sleeve across his cheek, leaving small areas of almost white. Uncle John talked to him in Dutch, and called him Hans, so the girls decided that this must be Hans Brinker himself or the little boy who saved the dike. They smiled at him but this seemed to scare him, for he ran down the alley and didn’t come back. They saw him peeking at them from behind the hitching tree when they left and this time he grinned and thumbed his nose at them. Uncle John heaved himself up the loft. He took out a jug from his corner cupboard and before he said a word to them he threw back his head and drank with gurgling noises and an active play of Adam’s apple. Then he passed the jug to Uncle Louie who drank a little, made a face, and spat it out.