Maid Sally.

by Harriet A. Cheever.

CHAPTER I.

HEARD AT INGLESIDE

"And the Fairy sang to the poor child, and stroked its tangled hair, and smoothed its puckered cheeks.

"And it sang and sang until the little face that had been full of trouble grew bright with the cheer of heartsease.

"And still the Fairy sang and sang until, from very peacefulness, the child's eyes began to droop and softly close, just as the flowers droop and hang their pretty heads at twilight-song.

"And the Fairy sang on and on until the little creature in its arms had floated into Dreamland, and then had pa.s.sed far beyond Dreamland into Fairy Town. And the child skipped through green fields and gra.s.sy meadows, went dancing through beds of flowers, and flying in and out of bushes full of sweetest scents. It drank the honey-drops the bees love, and sipped syrup of flowers, the humming-bird's food. And it heard ripples of music, such as are heard only in Fairy Town, and saw lovely little objects with wings of gauze, and eyes like sparks of light.

"And the Fairy sang and sang, and the child dreamed and dreamed, until every shadow of its life had faded away. And still it dreamed and dreamed--"

"Sally! Sally!"

The little girl that had been listening under the hedge close to the stone wall, jumped at the sound of her name.

Oh, dear! _must_ she go back to Slipside Row, and hear the scolding voice of Mistress Cory Ann Brace, after being lifted almost into the clouds, and having a tiny peep into Fairy Town?

Could she come back to earth again, and cook, and scrub, and sew, and do all kinds of hard things, after hearing that wonderful sc.r.a.p of glory about the dear, beautiful creatures called the Fairies?

"Sally! Sally!"

"Yes, Mistress Cory Ann, I'm coming."

Swiftly back through Shady Path and Lover's Lane ran Sally, her frowsly head full of the strange, sweet fragment of fairy song that she had heard.

"Now, where've you been?" cried Mistress Cory Ann, as Sally came panting into the Row. "Not up to Ingleside, I hope! I had to run way up the path to make you hear. Haven't I told you more'n a hundred times you'd better keep away from there? Just let the people up at the big house catch you pokin' around, and back you'll come faster'n ever you went. Do you hear, Sally Dukeen?"

Strange it would have been had not Sally heard, for Mistress Cory Ann's voice was loud enough to have reached way across Lover's Lane. But Sally answered truthfully.

"Yes, I hear, Mistress Cory Ann, and I have not been on the Ingleside grounds at all."

No, she only had been roaming on the borders of the beautiful place, then hiding close to the stone wall.

A poor, hard-worked little girl it was that had raced back to Slipside Row. And no one to glance at her would have thought her pretty at all.

The people who lived in the row of houses were poor, but they all liked Sally. Yet all they knew about her was that her father had boarded with his little girl at Mistress Cory Ann Brace's house, when Mistress Brace lived in another town, and in a much finer house than any at Slipside Row. But he soon died, leaving his little girl, and some money, in Mistress Brace's care.

No one knew about the money, however, except Mistress Brace herself, but had it been used as it should have been, there would have been enough to have lasted some time, paying for the child's coming needs. But Mistress Brace hid it away, meaning to do with it exactly as she pleased, while she still kept Sally, because, being a smart and willing child, she could be of great use. Then Mistress Brace moved to a place called "The Flats," where she lived three years; now she had lived three more years at Slipside Row.

The mistress was not really cruel to Sally, neither was she kind. And very constantly at work she kept her, sweeping, cooking, sewing; in fact, doing anything that a growing child of eleven years could do. And if ever Sally grew tired, and was not brisk as usual, Mistress Brace would say that it was to the Town House she must go.

Now Sally had seen old Gran'ther Smithers and Aunt Melindy Duckers, who lived at the Town House, and she often had seen the old building itself, set far back in a gra.s.sy road that was not at all unpleasant, but so dreadful was the thought of ever having to go there herself, that no matter what Mistress Brace required of her, she tried her best to do it.

But one great help and comfort was coming to good little Sally. An ignorant woman was Mistress Brace, for indeed she could scarcely more than read and write, and she cared more for money and show than she did for better things, such as learning and filling the mind with useful knowledge.

People who know but little are likely to be superst.i.tious; they are very quick to believe foolish and untrue sayings, or things that in the least alarm them, perhaps having in them something to dread.

One day, who should come along but a kind old colored woman, who sometimes pa.s.sed the corner house of Slipside Row, and noticed how much work the little girl who lived there always had to do. On this particular day, the next one after Sally had listened to the Fairy story, as Mammy Leezer saw her scrubbing the steps, she said to Mistress Brace, who was standing at a little distance:

"And when do lil Missy go outen to play?"

"Children have no need to waste time in playing," snapped Mistress Brace, and she glanced around, hoping Sally could not hear. "Don't you go a-talking! Sally's out o' doors nearly all the time; what more can she want, I should like to know?"

The old black woman shook her head several times, and looked sly and knowing, as she said in her sweet old voice:

"Jus' you keep lil Missy at work all de time and see what happen!

Chillerns should have a good long play hour eb'ry day. Chillerns should hab their suppers right early, an' de chile dat have to work affer de supper's down her frote, doan't you go a-asting me what happen to de pusson dat makes her do de work! Doan't you go a-asting me dat!"

Mammy rolled her eyes, tossed up her dusky hands, and away she trundled as if things too dreadful to be spoken were in her mind. And Mistress Cory Ann for once forgot to scold, because of a creepy feeling that seemed travelling up her spine. She did not say a word then, neither was there danger that she might forget what Mammy Leezer had said.

Mammy lived in her cabin at "the quarters," at Ingleside, but was getting old and lame, and but little work was required of her. A famous cook and nurse she had been in her day, but now she had "de rheumatiz"

in her "jints," and a touch of "de asthmy" often at night.

So beyond doing fancy cooking, when there was company at the mansion, or now and then tending some one who was ill, Mammy sat serenely smoking her pipe at the cabin door, while knitting socks "for de men folkses."

And she declared herself "a berry comforable ole pusson," in spite of her aches and pains.

Oh, wonder of wonders! That night, to Sally's astonishment and great delight, did Mistress Cory Ann tell the child that "for reasons" she would herself wash the supper dishes, and she added:

"After this, whenever you have worked well through the day, I reckon I don't care what you do with yourself after supper, only that you need not stray far away; I might be wanting you."

Supper at Mistress Cory Ann's was not much of an affair, but as she boarded two or three hired men, plenty of dishes there always were to be washed, and nearly bedtime it would be before Sally could get cleared up.

But, now, oh, joy! as soon as that meal was over, Sally was to be free, free! Up she rushed to her cubby of a room in the attic, caught up a piece of looking-gla.s.s she had found one lucky day up by the great house, and peering at her own queer little image in the bit of mirror, she piped, in tones of great glee:

"Did you hear _that_, Sally Dukeen? Did'st hear that, little Mistress Sally!"

CHAPTER II.

THE GREAT HOUSE

Of all things lovely and full of fascination in Sally's little narrow world, everything in and about Ingleside stood far and away the highest in her eyes.

It was her delight, her admiration, her dream by day and her dream by night. Ingleside! With its wide-spreading mansion, its far-reaching plantation that was, after all, but a short run for an agile child from Slipside Row.

Had Sally known the meaning of such a word as "romance," which is a sweet and wonderful story, or happening, or dream, she would have known that the chief bewitchment of her life sprang from the dear romance that to her fancy was all about fair Ingleside.