She didn't finish her threat in words, but Bessie had plenty of memories of former punishments. She made no answer, and Mrs. Hoover, still scowling, finally went off.
As if that had been a signal, another girl appeared suddenly from the back of the woodshed. She was as dark as Bessie was fair, a mischievous, black-eyed girl, who danced like a sprite as she approached Bessie. Her brown legs were bare, her dress was even more worn and far dingier than Bessie's, which was clean and neat. She was smiling as Bessie saw her.
"Oh, Zara, aren't you afraid to come here?" said Bessie, alarmed, although Zara was her best and almost her only friend. "You know what she said she'd do if she ever caught you around here again?"
"Yes, I know," said Zara, seating herself on a stump and swinging her legs to and fro, after she had kissed Bessie, still laughing. "I'm not afraid of her, though, Bessie. She'd never catch me—she can't run fast enough! And if she ever touched me—"
The smile vanished suddenly from Zara's olive skinned face. Her eyes gleamed.
"She'd better look out for herself!" she said. "She wouldn't do it again!"
"Oh, Zara, it's wrong to talk that way," said Bessie. "She's been good to me. She's looked after me all this time—and when I was sick she was ever so nice to me—"
"Pooh!" said Zara. "Oh, I know I'm not good and sweet like you, Bessie! The teacher says that's why the nice girls won't play with me. But it isn't. I know—and it's the same way with you. If we had lots of money and pretty clothes and things like the rest of them, they wouldn't care. Look at you! You're nicer than any of them, but they don't have any more to do with you than with me. It's because we're poor."
"I don't believe it's that, Zara. They know that I haven't got time to play with them, and that I can't ask them here, or go to their houses if they ask me. Some time—"
"You're too good, Bessie. You never get angry at all. You act as if you ought to be grateful to Maw Hoover for looking after you. Don't she make you work like a hired girl, and pay you nothin' for it? You work all the time—she'd have to pay a hired girl good wages for what you do, and treat her decently, beside. You're so nice that everyone picks on you, just 'cause they know they can do it and you won't hit back."