“Thank you,” Hanna said, her smile tremulous. It occurred to her that her family’s fortunes had become tightly meshed with the Harrises’. Mr. Harris was the reason she and Papa had come to LaForge in the first place. Bess was helping keep them there. At the same time, Hanna was helping Bess by employing her . . . and perhaps in other ways, too.

“You’re welcome,” Bess said. Pause. “That was a fine idea of yours, for me to go to Miss Walters first. I couldn’t have done it alone, and she—well—”

“She wouldn’t have done it without you,” Hanna finished for her. “When I saw that line of people outside the door, I could scarce believe it. How did you do it?”

“We made a plan,” Bess said. “It took us a long time—the whole morning, and again after dinner. We laid out to say different things, depending on the person. I wrote them down and read them aloud until I knew them nearly by heart. That was Miss Walters’s idea, to make it almost like a reading lesson. She said that if I knew well what I wanted to say, I wouldn’t be as nervous saying it. She was right.”

They had begun by telling the ladies the truth: that Hanna was fetching lard cans from the hotel when the two men attacked her. “I said I’d seen for myself the marks on your shoulder. Then we would remind them of the times that Mr. Swenson has gotten into trouble before, because of drink. That part was always easy for them to credit.”

Bess reported that with some of the women, she and Miss Walters would talk about the shop. “Mrs. Grantham and Mrs. Murphy, and a few others—the ones who wear their Sunday best even during the week. I told them that I’d seen the dress goods, and how lovely the shop is, and how good you are at dressmaking.” Bess grinned at the memory. “Really, they didn’t need much persuading.”

Other women proved more difficult to convince. Bess frowned. “It was strange. None of them seemed to have any problem believing that those men were at fault. But still they made excuses.”

She glanced away, her face growing pink. Hanna guessed what Bess did not want to say: that certain women were reluctant to patronize the shop because Hanna was half-Chinese.

“Some people are just . . .” Hanna trailed off, unsure how to finish her thought.

“Rotten eggs,” Bess finished for her.

A moment’s pause, and they both burst out laughing. After they caught their breath, Bess went on. “At Pastor Schmidt’s, Mrs. Schmidt mentioned that your father tithes. So then we told the ladies that staying away from the shop would mean less money for the church. That’s what I told Ma, too. And Mrs. Blake said—” Bess stopped, her expression suddenly aghast.