“Well, Sister's the limit!” smiled Hiram, as he turned into the street, with its rows of ugly brick houses on either hand. “I believe Fred Crackit has got it right. Mrs. Atterson keeps Sister instead of a cat—so there'll be something to kick.”
The half-grown girl—narrow-chested, round shouldered, and sallow—had been taken by Mrs. Atterson from some charity institution. “Sister,” as the boarders all called her, for lack of any other cognomen, would have her yellow hair in four attenuated pigtails hanging down her back, and she would shuffle about the dining-room in a pair of Mrs. Atterson's old shoes——
“By Jove! there she is now,” exclaimed the startled youth.
At the corner of the street several “slices” of the brick block had been torn away and the lot cleared for the erection of some business building. Running across this open space with wild shrieks and spilling the milk from the big pitcher she carried—milk for the boarders' tea, Hi knew—came Mrs. Atterson's maid.
Behind her, and driving her like a horse by the ever present “pigtails,” bounded a boy of about her own age—a laughing, yelling imp of a boy whom Hiram knew very well.
“That Dan Dwight is the meanest little scamp at this end of the town!” he said to himself.
The noise the two made attracted only the idle curiosity of a few people. It was a locality where, even on Sundays, there was more or less noise.
Sister begged and screamed. She feared she would spill the milk and told Dan, Junior, so. But he only drove her the harder, yelling to her to “Get up!” and yanking as hard as he could on the braids.
“Here! that's enough of that!” called Hiram, stepping quickly toward the two.
For Sister had stopped exhausted, and in tears.