“Oh, you’ll get used to that. You’ll like it. Take a look now and say I’m some barber.”
Gran’ma Calkins’ old mirror, hung where the light shone strong upon it, reflected back to Sidney a strange and pleasing image.
“Why I like it!” she cried, running her fingers through the mass. “It’s—it’s—so different. It’s jolly.”
“You won’t have to bother combing it much, either. I don’t touch mine sometimes for days.”
Sidney, still staring at the stranger in the old mirror, laughed softly. “Wait until Nancy sees it. Nancy hair is straight as can be or I’ll bet she’d cut hers. And Issy. Issy will have a fit when she knows. And Mrs. Milliken!” Here she broke off abruptly, not even in her triumph must she give hint to Mart of the League and its hold upon the house of Romley. “Oh, I like it!” she repeated exultingly. “And it won’t be half the bother.” She felt now that she was Mart’s peer in point of abandon.
“You don’t think your Aunt Achsa will make a fuss, do you?” asked Martie, with tardy concern.
“Aunt Achsa? Oh, no! At least—” It had not occurred to Sidney that Aunt Achsa had anything to say about it. “She lets me do anything.” Which was quite true. But something of Sidney’s exultance faded; she was beginning to wish that she had just said something to Aunt Achsa about it before she let Mart clip her braids—not exactly asked permission but confided her intentions. That Mart might not perceive her moment’s perturbation she turned her attention to the clams.
“I ought not to have half for I didn’t find nearly as many as you did.”
“Oh, rats. Take ’em. All you want.” To Mart, who could dig clams faster than old Jake Newberry, an accurate division of their spoils meant nothing. To Sidney who dug awkwardly each clam was a treasure.
Her step lagged as she approached Aunt Achsa’s. She hoped Aunt Achsa would not be home. Then she wondered why she could not be as confidently defiant as Martie; she supposed it was the restraint of the League and the three sisters under whom she had had to live and Martie had not. But it was absurd to feel even apprehensive of Aunt Achsa’s displeasure when Aunt Achsa was such a little thing and so indefinite a relative.