Although Mrs. Carson made no comment on Sally’s shy caress, the girl felt that from that moment the farmer’s wife was her friend, undeclared but staunch.
Knowing that any day might prove to be her last on the farm, for Carson never let slip an opportunity to threaten her by innuendo with the disgrace of being sent back to the Home, Sally found a ray of comfort in the fact that Grandma Carson, probably because she felt sorry for Sally, constantly hectored as she was by the jealous, vicious-tongued Pearl, was slowly but surely completing the necessary alterations upon the other two dresses that Pearl had given her.
The vague-eyed, kindly little old woman finished the alterations on Saturday morning, and Sally sped to her garret room with them, there to try them on and gloat over them. Then, her eyes darting now and then to the closed door, she hastily made a bundle of the three new dresses and hid it under the cornshuck mattress of her bed. Maybe it would be stealing to take the dresses if she had to run away, but she couldn’t hope to escape in the orphanage uniform—
Early Saturday afternoon Mrs. Carson announced that she had to go into the city to do some shopping. The farmer suggested that Pearl drive her in, since he himself was to be busy setting up the cider mill in a shack he had built at the foot of the lane, where it ran into the state highway.
“And you might as well take the Dodge and let Ma and Benny go in with you. They haven’t seen a picture show for a month,” Carson suggested.
The thought of seeing a movie overcame Sally’s timidity. “Would there be room for me, Mrs. Carson? I could help you with your shopping, help carry things—”
“I don’t see why not,” Mrs. Carson answered. “I got a lot of trotting around to do and it’s mighty hot—”
“Mama, if she goes, I won’t go a step,” Pearl burst out shrilly. “I won’t have her tagging after us all afternoon, making eyes at every man that speaks to me!”
“Pearl, Pearl, I’m afraid you’re spoiled rotten!” Mrs. Carson shook her head sadly. “I’ll bring you a pair of them fiber silk stockings, Sally, to wear to church tomorrow night with your flowered taffeta,” she offered brusquely, by way of consolation.
When the car had swept down the lane and Sally was left alone in the house, she busied herself furiously in an effort to dissipate her loneliness and disappointment, and a fear that grew upon her with the realization that Carson had not accompanied his family to town. The two hired men had left the farm for Capital City, immediately after the noon meal, wages in their pockets, bent on an afternoon and evening of city pleasures. On the entire farm there was no one but herself, Carson and David. And where was David? If she needed him terribly, would he fail her?