Hyacinth Kulig was a real person who emigrated from Poland to America. And he did have a cousin who lived in Chicago. And this cousin did get a request from relatives in Poland asking for her help - and she never replied.

There was a big gas company in this area from about 1880 - so the town was quite lucky in having a good supply for a small village. No electricity yet. The people in the lower half of the village (where Barbara's house is) had piped water but those at the top near the church and school had to have wells. The sewers ran down the centre of the  main streets.

May, 1915

Lizbet was playing happily with Rebecca, but when I sneaked a look in the room, it was very much a one sided conversation. Rebecca would say, “Here is dolly. She is going to school,” and march the dolly off down the room. Lizbet would laugh, and look pleased, but she didn’t say anything. I was beginning to wonder if she could speak English at all.

“Hi you two,” I said

Lizbet looked up suddenly and she said, “Papa?”

I said, “He’s had to go for tonight, love, but he will be back tomorrow. We need to find him some new clothes to wear, and some new clothes for you too. How would you like that?”

She quit looking as if she might burst into tears, and seemed to understand that what was going to happen would benefit her. So I got out the ladder which we stored under the single bed, and we propped it up against the hatch, and I went up the seven or so steps necessary to raise the hatch and get into the attic space.

There is no floor as such, but John had laid planks along the joists so that we could store some of our things up there. It was still slightly light outside, and I could just make out the outline of the trunk. I pulled it close to the opening and without actually going into the attic I was able to open it, and I pulled out loads of old clothes of Rebecca’s and threw them down in a heap. Lizbet laughed and seemed very excited by having clothes rain down from heaven. When I had emptied the trunk I came down again, and we seriously looked at the options in front of us.

“She needs night clothes first off,” said Rebecca. “Here is my pink nightgown when I was about 5. It will be a bit big, but I think we could turn up the hem couldn’t we?”

“And here is a cardigan which you hardly wore because your grandma sent it thinking you were small and found out you were much bigger.”

We found several skirts and dresses which would be suitable. There were also several sets of underwear – bodices and bloomers which although rather worn would do for now. With making things either slightly larger or smaller, we had suddenly created a whole new wardrobe for our new cousin.

“She should try them on.”

“But she needs a bath,” I said. Look how dirty she is, and her hair is filthy.

“Have we got enough hot water for a bath?” asked Rebecca.

“I’ll light the gas heater and the water should be ready in ten minutes.” I was so pleased that we rent a gas water heater for both the bathroom and a gas copper for the cellar, although I still make do in the kitchen with water heated on the stove.

“You can take her into the bathroom and get her ready.” I realised that we were talking about her as if she couldn’t speak herself. So I felt obliged to look at her and slowly say, “Lizbet, would you like a bath?”

She smiled and nodded. I didn’t know if she really understood or not, but at least she trusted us not to do something to her that she wouldn’t like.

Rebecca started putting the clothes away in the drawers of the chest, although some of them smelled a bit stale from being shut up in the trunk, so some she put aside for washing before wearing.

“Will you be doing a wash tomorrow, Mum?”

“Of course, I always do on Mondays.”

“So you could put these things through as well?”

“Certainly I will.” I made sure there were enough clothes for her to have something to wear in the morning, and left out the pink nightgown for tonight, and took the other clothes to put in the hamper with our dirty wash for the morning.

I went down to make myself a cup of tea and when I returned upstairs, I found that Lizbet and Rebecca had found their way into the bathroom, and Rebecca had run a reasonably warm bath. “It will be fine for the moment,” I said. “Start with washing her hands and face with a flannel and see how she takes to it.”

So Rebecca rinsed a clean white flannel in the warm water, and making a lather with some soap, showed Lizbet that she wanted her to put her hands over the tub. When she had done that, Rebecca took each hand in turn and washed it gently, with the flannel turning almost brown with the layers of dirt on her hands. “Oh, Mummy,” she said.

Taking a clean flannel, Rebecca washed her face and now, it was another colour too – and she looked happy to be clean again. Who knows the last time her face was washed.

The water had continued to heat so we added some more hot and now the tub was at least 3 inches deep with water which was comfortably warm, if not exactly hot. Rebecca carefully stripped off Lizbet’s clothes, amazed to find that she had on 3 layers of everything – 3 sets of pants, bodices, blouses and skirts with a cardigan on top of it all. She looked half the size and very thin when her naked body was ready for the water. But when she sat down and Rebecca made bubbles with the soap and played games with her, any embarrassment was gone, and she was as happy as could be. I took all her old clothes off to be washed in the morning. Thank goodness we had found something else for her to wear, even if it would be a bit large on her.

Rebecca had her sink her head backwards into the water, holding on to her so she wouldn’t go under, and we managed to get her hair washed too. I found that by the time it was needed, enough water had heated sufficiently that we could rinse her hair under clean clear warm water. The little girl who came out of the bath was as clean and shiny as a newborn baby, and we wrapped her in a large white towel to dry off. Then Rebecca got her favourite old pink nightgown and Lizbet’s face lit up as she had it pulled over her head. There were ruffles on the sleeves and bottom, and a lace pattern on the chest. She looked so lovely and clean and happy. What a difference a bath could make.

I felt some hot soothing food would be the best for her at bedtime, so I made some porridge and put sugar and milk on it, and also a mug of cocoa, a meal which did for all three of us.

So now we had the job of getting Lizbet to bed. I told Rebecca to see if she could fill a stone jug with water for her feet, and I took her by the hand and helped her into the bed. Now she was there, I knew she would be missing her daddy, so I thought that if I cuddled her close to me, and told her a story, maybe she would go to sleep before she had time to think about where he might be.

And I too was wondering where he might be. Was he sheltering behind the organ in the choir loft? Had he eaten all the sandwiches or saved some for later? Did he like the lemonade?  Would he be warm enough? Then I shook myself and thought that was a fine way for a happily married woman to be thinking.

I read a Hans Christian Anderson story called The Little Mermaid. I had no idea if she understood the words, but she looked with interest at the pictures, and I could feel her relax and it wasn’t long before she was sound asleep. I settled her gently on the pillow and pulled up the blanket. I tucked one of Rebecca’s teddies in next to her, in case she woke early.

Then I went next door to have a talk with Rebecca.

“Darling,” I said, “I don’t know how much of what has been going on you have realised, but I want to tell you all that I know about it. Thank you so much for all that you did for Lizbet this afternoon. You were a life saver for me, taking her in charge like you did, and she seems to think you are wonderful too.”

“I loved having her around. It was like having a little sister.”

“Well, she is a relative. Her grandmother, (who is no longer alive and her mother also died recently), was my father’s cousin. When my father, who was called Hyacinth Kulig, moved to America forty-five years ago, she was very young, but the families kept in contact. Peter, Lizbet’s father, is her son and he came to find us specially, because he knew that I was a relative and he was hoping that I would agree to care for his daughter, which I have now done. They have escaped from Germany, and he is now a wanted man. If he went back they would put him in prison, or even maybe shoot him. He knew he was taking a risk but he desperately wanted to get his daughter out of Germany and to some relatives. He tried to contact the Americans, and had no reply, but there is no way he could have got her all that way anyhow.

So you see we have to do several things. We have to keep Lizbet safe and make her happy. Her daddy will try to stay around, but if he is discovered, since he is from Germany he might be sent to a prisoner of war camp, or he might be deported. We have to keep the fact that we know him a secret. I am not yet sure how we can do all this, but we need to talk about it and make plans, and then when he comes again tomorrow, I must have some suggestions for him.”

“So who are we going to tell everyone that Lizbet is and where she comes from when they ask? Because they will ask. We can’t have somebody living with us and not have people asking questions about her.”

“Well, I think we can honestly say she is our cousin’s grandchild and that her mother has died, and that we have been asked to care for her. I think as long as we can, we must tell the truth because if we get involved in complex lies, it will be hard to keep everything straight. But I think we might say she comes from Belgium, instead of Germany. There is a part of Belgium where people speak German – so if anyone questioned her accent, it would not be surprising that she sounded like a German if she came from German-speaking Belgium. We will have to have a new last name for them, because it is likely that her father is a wanted man and his name will be known. We must look through books which tell about Belgium and see what we can find about where we can pretend they come from.”

“Couldn’t Lizbet be a name that is used in Belgium too? She wouldn’t like having to change her name.”

“Yes, but what I really hope is that she will learn to speak English like you do, perhaps more than like I do as I still have somewhat of an American inflection. So if we called her Beth – and she spoke like we do, she would not stand out, and people wouldn’t be so curious as to her background.”

“I like Beth. I will call her that tomorrow and see if she can relate to it. But what about her father? Where is he now? What will he do?”

“I don’t know the answers to that anymore than you do. I think he might be back at the church, hiding in the choir loft. That is where I found them this morning, although at the time I didn’t know he was actually looking for me. But the church is open most of the time and he can easily slip in and out of it unseen if he picks his time. But he won’t want to stay there much longer.

“I hope he will find a job of some sort to do. I will give him the names of some of the employers around here, and suggest to him that he says he is a Belgian refugee – there are so many of them around here. He does speak good English, although his accent is very foreign sounding, but he appears to be healthy and as so many of our men are away at the war, it might well he could get a job where they wouldn’t check too closely into his background. What I intend to do when he comes tomorrow, is to give him some of your daddy’s clothes – they will be short and large – as he is so tall and thin, but at least they will be clean, and then I can wash those that he is wearing. And I will suggest that he tries to find work, and then perhaps we can meet up with him on a regular basis at some out of the way place – like in the park or down by the Roman Lakes. But he might have some ideas and plans of his own, so I will make my suggestions but leave him to decide how he will proceed.”

“Oh, mother, this is all so exciting. Whatever will Daddy say?”

“I think perhaps we won’t mention Peter to Daddy just yet, as he might worry about us if he thought we were helping someone who was wanted by the law. But we will tell him about Beth and I’m sure he won’t object to her staying here with us. You think carefully about things that we might do too, because I value your ideas and need your help if we are to make this work.”

“I will do my best, Mummy, and I know if we try hard it will be fine.”

“Thank you darling. Now good night.” I kissed her on the cheek. “We are going to have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. You will have a little time with Beth before school, but then I will have to find ways of entertaining her during the day. But she seems a sweet little girl and I’m sure that if I can keep her from being too upset about her daddy being away, we will be all right.”

So with that we both took to our beds, our minds full of thoughts and plans for the big adventure. During the night Beth cried, but when I went to her and soothed her and spoke gentle words, she settled down again and went back to sleep. “Poor little mite. I wonder when she last had a full night’s sleep,” I thought.