She had always longed to be a boy, and her drum was the concession her father had made to her desire.
Upon it he had taught her to beat so clearly and in time, that she had become famous among his boon companions.
But there was no place in Mrs. Lane’s house for such an unmaidenly thing, and to save it from destruction, Debby had hidden it behind the old home in a bit of woodland. Thither she sometimes ran when life pressed hard, and with muffled sticks, beat frantically upon the blessed comfort.
During the year which dragged drearily away after Mr. Mason left the town, Debby learned to do some useful things in her new home, and she grew straight and tall and strong; but her heart was hard and bitter. Strange as it seemed though, in all her misery in the prim existence, she remembered her mother clearer than ever before, and snatches of old talk and scenes came sharply to her mind.
It had not always been such a sad life as Debby had last known with her father. Once the home was neat and cosy, and dimly an old story,—a story never finished, floated through the girl’s mind.
“Some day, child, when thou art older,” it was the mother who had spoken, “I will tell thee of my home. Perhaps we’ll write a letter, they may like to see thee, little lass. Try to be a lady, dear, then they will not be ashamed of thee.” Things grew confused as Debby tried to think, but there was one night that was ever clear. It was the last night of the clean happy life. “Be a lady, Debby child, and whatever happens stay with father like a good maid. Save him, dear, he was a fine man once. He will tell thee the rest of the story some day.”
How vividly Debby remembered clinging to the poor mother and sobbing out the promise to stay with father. After that scene all was confusion and misery. The untold story was never finished or asked for. Uncared-for and neglected poor Debby became an outcast among decent children, and the butt of the reckless ones.
And so it had gone from bad to worse until the town had ordered Bill Mason from the village of his adoption, and had bound Debby to Mrs. Lane for five years.
CHAPTER II.
DEBBY TAKES HER OWN WAY.
“Deborah?”