But Pearl Carson, if not exactly pretty, was not homely, Sally was forced to admit to herself. She looked more like one of her father’s healthy, sorrel-colored heifers than anything else, except that the heifer’s eyes would have been mild and kind and slightly melancholy, while Pearl Carson’s china-blue eyes were wide and cold, in an insolent, contemptuous stare.
“I suppose you’re the new girl from the Orphans’ Home,” she said at last. “What’s your name?”
“Sa-Sally Ford,” Sally stammered, institutional shyness blotting out her radiance, leaving her pale and meek.
“Pearl, you take Sally up to her room and show her where to put her things. Did you bring a work dress?” Mrs. Carson turned from inspecting a great iron kettle of cooking food on the stove.
“Yes’m,” Sally gulped. “But I only brought two dresses—my every-day dress and this one. Mrs. Stone said you’d—you’d give me some of P-Pearl’s.”
She flushed painfully, in humiliation at having to accept charity and in doubt as to whether she was to address the daughter of the house by her Christian name, without a “handle.”
Pearl, switching her short, lavender silk skirts insolently, led the way up a steep flight of narrow stairs leading directly off the kitchen to the garret. The roof, shaped to fit the gables of the house, was so low that Sally’s head bumped itself twice on their passage of the dusty, dark corridor to the room she was to be allowed to call her own.
“No, not that door!” Pearl halted her sharply. “That’s where David Nash, one of the hired men, sleeps.”
Sally wanted to stop and lay her hand softly against the door which his hand had touched, but she did not dare. “I—I saw him,” she faltered.
“Oh, you did, did you?” Pearl demanded sharply. “Well, let me tell you, young lady, you let David Nash alone. He’s mine—see? He’s not just an ordinary hired hand. He’s working his way through State A. & M. He’s a star, on the football team and everything. But don’t you go trying any funny business on David, or I’ll make you wish you hadn’t!”