“Mercy, yes! So ragged!” said Anastasia Monahan, called Stashie for short. She was a big girl, fourteen years old, who was in the seventh grade.
“He doesn’t look as if he ever combed his hair!” said Betsy. “It looks just like a wisp of old hay.”
“And sometimes,” little Molly proudly added her bit to the talk of the older girls, “he forgets to put on any stockings and just has his dreadful old shoes on over his dirty, bare feet.”
“I guess he hasn’t got any stockings half the time,” said big Stashie scornfully. “I guess his stepfather drinks ’em up.”
“How can he drink up stockings!” asked Molly, opening her round eyes very wide.
“Sh! You mustn’t ask. Little girls shouldn’t know about such things, should they, Betsy?”
“No indeed,” said Betsy, looking mysterious. As a matter of fact, she herself had no idea what Stashie meant, but she looked wise and said nothing.
Some of the boys had squatted down near the rocks for a game of marbles now.
“Well, anyhow,” said Molly resentfully, “I don’t care what his stepfather does to his stockings. I wish ’Lias would wear ’em to school. And lots of times he hasn’t anything on under those horrid old overalls either! I can see his bare skin through the torn places.”
“I wish he didn’t have to sit so near me,” said Betsy complainingly. “He’s so dirty.”