“But why?”
“Because,” her voice rising shrill with passion, “Mrs. Hagood was horrid to me, and I ran away from her, I did; and I don’t care who knows it, I don’t; and I’ll never go back to her for anybody, never,” her cheeks flushing and her eyes flashing through her tears.
“In what way was Mrs. Hagood horrid to you?” questioned Mrs. Blossom.
For answer Posey tore open her collar and rolled up her sleeves showing the marks still visible on her neck and arms. It needed now hardly an inquiry to bring out the whole story, in which she omitted neither what she had said to Mrs. Hagood nor the bite she had given her hand. “And I’ll starve and die before I’ll go back to her,” she added in conclusion.
“It’s a burning shame to treat a child like that, I don’t care what she had done!” exclaimed Miss Silence. And Mrs. Patience added in her gentle tone, “Poor child! wouldn’t you like something to eat?” for Mrs. Patience had the idea that children were in a perpetual state of hunger.
“Was this Mrs. Hagood always cruel to you?” questioned Mrs. Blossom.
Posey hesitated a moment. “No, ma’am, I guess not. She gave me plenty to eat, but she scolded me from morning till night, and wanted me to work every minute. If she wasn’t always cruel she was never kind—” She paused and looked from face to face—“and now I’m away from her I’m going to stay away. The landlady at the hotel at Byfield will give me a dollar a week to wash dishes, but I wish you knew of some other place where I could live. I’d do everything I could to help, and I’d be real good. I’m not bad always, indeed I’m not.” She did not say, “If I might only stay here,” but her wistful eyes expressed the unspoken wish.
“Silence,” Mrs. Blossom spoke quickly, “will you go out in the orchard and get some sweet apples to bake; and Posey can go with you.”
“Now, mother,” Miss Silence laid down in her lap the work she held, “I don’t think it’s quite fair to send the child away while you and Grandmother talk her over, for she knows as well as I that’s what you would do. There’s only one thing I shall consent to—that she stay here till a suitable place is found for her.”
“Thee will always be the same impulsive, impetuous Silence as long as thee lives.” Grandmother Sweet’s face crinkled in a smile. Though an attentive listener she had not spoken before. She turned to her daughter, “I have nothing to say for my part, Elizabeth, that the young girl might not hear, indeed that I would not prefer she should hear.