“They just hates to see a curl or a bit of ribbon,” added Betsy Seddon.
“Or to see one have a bit of pleasure,” added Nancy Morris. “Pucklechurches and Mole, they never durst send their poor children to the fair—”
“And to hear the lady run out agin’ me for just having a drop of beer,” exclaimed Nanny Barton. “Nothing warn’t bad enough for me! As if she hadn’t her wine and all the rest of it, and a poor woman mayn’t touch one draught, if it is ever so—”
“Well, you know, Nan, you’d had a bit more than enough,” said Tirzah.
“Well, and what call to that was hern or yourn?” cried Nancy, facing upon her.
“A pretty job I had to get you home that night,” said Tirzah; and they all laughed. “And you wouldn’t be here now if Tom Postboy hadn’t pulled up his horses in time.”
“And was it for her to cast up to me if I was a bit overtaken?” demanded Nanny.
It may be supposed that after such a conversation as this there was not much chance of the bowl-dish setting the fashion. There was not the same ill-temper and jealousy of Susan Pucklechurch being held up as an example, for her family were the natural hangers-on of Greenhow, and were, besides, always neater and better dressed than the others; but Mrs Mole was even poorer than themselves, and had worked with them, even while “keeping herself to herself,” a great offence in their eyes. Thus nobody was inclined to follow the clipped fashion, except one or two meeker women, who had scarcely seen that their girls’ hair was getting beyond bounds. It is to be remembered that seventy years ago, long hair could hardly be kept in respectable trim by busy mothers working in the fields, and with much less power of getting brushes and combs than at present; so that the crops were almost the only means of securing cleanliness and tidiness, and were worn also by all the little daughters of such gentry as did not care for fashion, nor for making them sleep on a ring of lumps as big as walnuts. So that Mrs Carbonel and her sisters really wished for what was wholesome and proper when they tried to make the children conform to their rules, if the women could only have seen it so, instead of resenting the interference.
Sunday brought George Hewlett’s two girls with their hair fastened up in womanly guise, and their cousins becurled as before; but there was nothing particularly untidy, and Mary held her peace.
However, the war was not over, and one day, when, after a short absence, Dora and Sophy went into the school, they found five or six girls bristling with twists of old newspapers, and others in a still more objectionable condition, with wild unkempt hair about their necks, and the half-dozen really neat ones were on the form around Mrs Thorpe, who proceeded to tell Dora that she was quite in despair, the more she spoke to the girls about tidy heads, the worse they were, and she was really afraid to let her own children or the clean ones sit near the dirty ones.