LIMITATIONS.
A brown faced, tangle-haired, barefooted little girl; a long country road, its yellow clay beaten into powder, which rose with every gust of wind into whirling eddies, and spitefully enveloped each passer-by in a grimy cloak, and followed after each vehicle like an abhorrent specter. Long rows of maple cast their cool shadows from either side; raspberries and blackberries grew in the corners of the old rail fence; a narrow footpath cut like a yellow thread into the thick green sod; here and there a sweet-william held up its fragrant head; and in the field beyond the long rows of corn rustled their broad leaves, and murmured together.
Thella swung her sunbonnet by the strings, and gave a little hop-skip-and-jump for very joy of living. She stopped instantly, as she heard, “Thella! Thella!” called in a fretful, rasping tone.
“Yes’m,” answered she, at the top of a high-pitched, young voice, as she ran rapidly toward a stout, red-faced woman, who stood leaning over the top of the gate.
“I declare to goodness, you make me think of a turkey! It’s no wonder that you are the ugliest young one living! Look at that mop of hair, and that slit in your dress!” said she, her voice raised to a shrill scream.
Thella dropped her head, and drew her black brows together sullenly. “Why don’t you put that sunbonnet on your head? Oh, drat you, get out of my sight, you little imp!”
Thella had been digging one brown toe in the dust, but at the conclusion of the tirade she darted past the woman, dextrously dodged a blow and ran into the house. She flew upstairs into the attic; there was a little square window, draped over with cobwebs; Thella had rubbed the grime off the lower panes, but she left the cobwebs—she called them her curtains, and the spiders her little lace makers. From out the rubbish she had long ago hunted a mirror, with a very wavy surface. She crouched on the floor with her head bowed upon the window-sill, sobbing bitterly; the most forlorn little thing imaginable.
Her stepmother’s voice faintly reached her:
“Thella! Thella! Drat the child! she’d wear the patience out of a saint!” whether she intended to imply that she was a saint or not, I do not know.
Thella only gave a little flout: “You can split your old throat for all that I care.”