Maid Sally Part 9

"It would not be best, little maiden, for you to enter the cla.s.ses with other young persons of your age, for they would be too far beyond you in their studies. Nor can I feel it would do to enter you with A, B, C scholars, for they would be much younger, and smaller in stature than yourself.

"But I like not to send away either lad or maid who desires greatly to learn. Twice a week, I go a few miles to pay a short visit to a sister who is lame; if then you will come promptly of a Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when school does not keep, and look gently after my aged mother, and also do a little plain sewing,--for I like not that the hands should be idle,--I will on other evenings of the week lend you books and faithfully teach you to read well, write, and spell."

Sally almost forgot her fear and cried out, "Oh, thank you, thank you, good Mistress Kent! I will indeed take good care of the aged mother, and do the sewing with a careful eye."

And then, as if unable to help it, she ran forward and put a kiss on the teacher's thin neck.

The spinster flushed rosy red and said, in a voice that trembled:

"There, there, child, that will do, be not overmuch thankful for what it pleaseth me to do, but come on Wednesday of next week, and we will proceed to help each other."

Sally wandered toward home as if in a dream. For, lo! so easily had she already found a way to learn. And perfectly happy she would have been, had not a voice said grimly within her:

"But you have not yet reckoned with Mistress Cory Ann Brace!"

It was then Thursday, and nearly a week would Sally have in which to settle matters. And the next Sat.u.r.day, after cleaning kitchen, steps, and shed with much care, she said to Mistress Cory Ann that twice a week she had the chance to go to Mistress Kent of the dame school in the afternoon to do her some service, and that evenings she was to be taught by the schoolmistress.

Then it was that Mistress Cory Ann blazed forth, and poor Sally felt her hopes dying down under her wrath. Indeed! had she not seen the slicking up, the rigging and the putting about to make herself fine? Not a step should she go to Mistress Kent to be taught book-learning!

"Have I not clothed and fed you, ungrateful girl," she cried, "but off you must go making a smart lady of yourself, and getting notions that will fit you neither to do one thing nor another? Was it seeing that young macaroni of a boy start off in all his glory to cram his head with book stuff that set you up to wanting the same thing yourself? Get the notion out again, then, quick! Not a word more of this nonsense about Mistress Kent and her teachings. If you disobey, off you go to the Town House, and there stay until you are eighteen."

Oh, dreadful! Sally said not another word; she only moped about as if heart-broken. She did not go over to Ingleside after supper, but went across to the pines, and throwing herself face downward on the moss, as she had done once before when her ignorance first appeared before her, she cried and cried until again she fell asleep.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PARSON

Sally had slept but a little while when something hit her arm, which was stretched out, and lifting her head, she heard a startled cry.

"Lorr de ma.s.sy, chile! You nearly scare de bref outen my body!" and there was Mammy Leezer, whose staff had touched her arm before the old woman saw her from the side of a tree.

It took but a look or two to see Sally's swollen eyes and flushed cheeks.

"Now what a-matter, honey?" asked the soothing old voice. "I come over here in de woods fo' some big burdock leaves I knew was here, and I soaks dem in winegar fo' to quiet de mis'ry in my bones. But what grieve you? Tell ole Mammy all 'bout it."

Sally s.h.i.+vered with a sob that came before she could keep it back, then she simply said that she had wanted to study, and some one was willing to teach her, but that Mistress Brace would not allow it.

Mammy put on the cunning look that meant a good deal.

"Oh, now doan't go bursting yo' poor lil heart over dat," she crooned, "p'raps yous'll be gettin' de schoolin' after all."

"You don't know Mistress Brace," said Sally, with a sad little smile.

"No, I doan't berry much," said Mammy, in a voice that swelled, "but I might be gettin' to knowin' her better one o' dese days." And she hobbled away, a broad grin on her round face.

When beyond Shady Path, Mammy was delighted to see Mistress Brace striding along, a market basket on her arm.

Now Mammy knew not the first thing about the money that Sally's father had left for his little girl. But she did know that he had boarded in a nice house at Jamestown Corners when Mistress Brace lived there, that he had appeared to have plenty of money, and that his little girl wore the nicest of clothes.

All this she heard long ago from a colored woman who lived at Jamestown Corners, and would sometimes stop at the quarters at Ingleside.

The dark woman had shaken her head in dismal fas.h.i.+on after Mistress Brace removed first to the Flats, and then to Slipside Row, keeping the child with her, and she would say:

"I wonder whar Mars' Dukeen's money all go to, for he had money, shor!"

This rushed into Mammy's mind as Mistress Brace drew near, but she said in her sweet singsong:

"Good evening, mistis, whar de lil one to-night?"

"Who, Sally?" asked Mistress Cory Ann, eying Mammy with a hard, sidelong glance, "I'm sure I don't know where she is."

"Le's see," began Mammy, standing still, "didn' some one say she were goin' to de dame school or sumpin o' that kind? Seems to me I heerd it somewhar. And she oughter go, too! Her pappy--I know all 'bout her pappy--he meant his lil girl should have learnin' with de best, and oh, de gracious me! such tings as happens to folks as cheats chillern outen their schoolin'!"

Mammy looked around with a fearful air as she added:

"Why, if ennybody try to keep dat young Mars' Lion from learnin' all he want to, de plagues and de torments that come upon dem!"

She went muttering away, leaving Mistress Cory Ann wis.h.i.+ng that she was on the ocean with her "Mars' Lion." But for all that, her words sunk into Mistress Brace's mind and troubled her, nor could she forget them.

Yet two afternoons of the week she determined Sally should not have. But she said to her the next morning that, after thinking things over, she would spare her one afternoon a week, but it must be whenever it was most convenient.

To her surprise Sally replied that she must go on Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day afternoons, or not at all.

"Then it's not at all you'll go!" cried the angry mistress, "and remember, the Town House is not far away!"

"What will you do now?" asked her good Fairy, when Sally was alone.

"I do not quite know," Sally made reply, "I must think it out."

When Wednesday came Sally went to her attic room after dinner, but Mistress Brace took no notice of it. So very quiet had been Maid Sally during the few days past that Mistress Cory Ann thought all had been given up as to books and schooling.

But now Sally put on the print dress, coaxed down her s.h.i.+ning hair, put on her shoes, and slipping out without a word to Mistress Brace, she started for the home of the schoolmistress.

She never forgot the pleasure of that first afternoon at the pretty cottage. A canary-bird was trilling songs in a cage hung out on the porch. In the sitting-room, the old mother greeted her from her high-backed, cus.h.i.+oned rocking-chair. The old dame used fine language, and the books, pictures, and solid furniture, everything simple but nice, seemed in a way to belong to the world that Sally herself belonged to.

"You see you don't know just who you are," whispered her Fairy, "but do not mind that, all may be known in good time."

But when Mistress Kent returned from her sister's, and the mother said that Sally had been a good, likely child, and had given her a seed-cake,--Sally was afraid to go home.

So she wandered about, ate the seed-cake for her supper, then, seeing the gate open that led to Parson Kendall's orchard, she peeped in, noticing a wide, rustic chair under a broad tree.

"I wonder if that might be a comfortable chair to rest in awhile,"

murmured the child, and just to try it she slipped along the green.