"You horrid boy," she sputtered, "I'd make you work harder'n ma does if I could, and you'll be sorry next week when I ain't here!"
"Why, thay, Hannah, where you going?" asked Stubbins.
"I'm going away, and you boys'll have to make the beds and tidy up, and wash the dishes, and I'm glad of it. Wish I was never coming back. You're such a ungrateful set."
At the end of this speech Hannah was so pelted with potato bugs she fled from the field. The next day the little girl left home to earn fifty cents a week for two months helping in Mrs. Randall's kitchen.
As a matter of fact the Randalls had all the help they needed, but from the first day of school, Cornelia Mary had taken a fancy to Hannah, and had begged her mother to give the child a chance to learn how their neighbours lived. So, while Hannah washed dishes for fifty cents a week, she learned how to wash dishes properly. When she helped set the table and get the meals, she saw how such things should be done. When she made the beds with Cornelia Mary, she began to understand how sheets were used.
As the days went by, even the five little Mulvaneys who met Hannah in school every day, noticed a change in their sister. She outgrew her rude way of speaking, and looked and acted like a different girl. She kept her hair combed prettily, proud of the bright ribbons given her by Cornelia Mary. She learned to sew on buttons, and to keep her clothes in order.
"Straight, plain dresses aren't meant for thin little girls," observed Mrs. Randall, "so we'll make over some of Cornelia Mary's old ones for Hannah."
The first Sunday Hannah wore one of the new dresses she blossomed out like a full blown rose.
"Run home and show your mother, child," said Mrs. Randall.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Mulvaney, as the pink blossom joined her family beneath an apple-tree. "If she don't look like a posy with the pink bow on her hair, and such a splendiferous dress. Well, there now! I suppose you won't never want to come back to live with your poor old ma."