“I will tell Sidney what you say, and no doubt he will preach with a special thought of you and Ann Serrup.”
“Well, I’m glad I spoke of it,” said Mabella; “I wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
Vashti continued to smile serenely, as one who recognizes and understands cause for uncertainty. Her gaze was attracted to the window.
“Look!” she said suddenly.
Passing in plain view of the window was a most extraordinary figure. A creature with a face blacker than any Ethiopian, surmounted by a shock of fair hair—this individual was further adorned by the skirt of a bright blue dress, which, being made for a grown-up woman, dragged a foot or so on the ground behind; about the neck was a pink silk tie, showing signs of contact with the black, which was evidently not “fast”; above her head she held a parasol bordered with white cotton lace—thus caparisoned Sally paced it forth for the amusement of little Dorothy, who tottered upon her legs by reason of the violence of her laughter. Surrounding the pair, and joining apparently in the amusement, were the two dachshund puppies (Sidney’s latest importation to Dole), the collie, who followed with the sneaking expression of one who enjoys a risqué joke (and yet he could not forbear biting surreptitiously at the dragging flounces as they passed), and little Jim Shinar, who followed in a trance-like state of wide-eyed fascination. He lived nearer to the parsonage than any other child, and between the evil fascination which Sally exerted over him and the dread of finding himself within the gates of a man “who spoke out loud in church,” Jim’s life was oppressed with continual resistance to temptation, but he had frequent falls from grace, for Sally could do more things with her mouth and eyes than eat and see, indeed her capabilities in the line of facial expression were never exhausted, and there was a weirdness about her grimaces which fascinated older children than poor round-faced little Jim.
Sally peacocked it up and down before her admiring satellites, until suddenly there rang through the parsonage a vigorous expression uttered in a rich brogue, and at the same instant a large, red-faced woman rushed out of the kitchen door and appeared round the corner of the house.
Sally arrested her parade, paused, showed an inclination to flee, paused again, then with a gibe for which she dived back into her Blueberry Ally vocabulary, fled from the irate “work-lady,” who had unwittingly furnished forth the fine feathers in which Sally was strutting. Mary promptly gave chase, and that too with an agility which her bulk belied. The area of the hunting ground was not very great being bounded by the prim palings of the little garden, but no landscape gardener ever made more of his space than did Sally. She doubled and turned and twisted, and eluded Mary’s grasp by a hand-breadth, as she darted under her outstretched arms, but Sally was very unwise, for she used her breath in taunts and gibes, whilst Mary pursued the dishonoured flounces of her Sunday gown in a silence which was the more ominous because of her wonted volubility.
Sally was getting slightly winded, and was wishing she could get the gate open and give Mary a straightaway lead, but she had her doubts of the gate, sometimes it opened and sometimes it didn’t. Sally knew if it was obstinate that her fate was sealed; she was casting about for another means of escape when her adherents began to take a share in the proceedings. First, little Jim Shinar, standing rooted to the spot, saw the chase descending upon him; Sally dodged him, but Mary was too close behind and too eager for her prey to change her route quickly, so she charged into him and went over like a shot. Jim gave a howl, and Mary gathered herself up, and, breaking silence for the first time, ordered him home in a way not fit for ears polite, and then resumed the chase; but the dachshunds, seeing their playmate little Jim in the thick of it, concluded that there might be some fun in it for them also, and promptly precipitated themselves upon Mary in a way which impeded her progress so much that Sally was able to make the gate and get it half open before Mary shook herself free, but when she did she came like a whirlwind towards the gate, cheered on by the collie, whose excitement had at last slipped the collar and vented itself in sharp barks. Sally whisked through the gate, but Mary was at her heels. Sally felt the breath of the open, and knew if she escaped Mary’s first sprint that she was safe. So with a derisive taunt she sprang forward, jubilant, but alas, in the excitement of the crisis Sally let go her hold of the long skirt, which immediately fell about her heels, and in an instant the chase was ended, for Mary, panting, blown, and enraged beyond expression, was on Sally in a second, and fell with her as the long skirt laid her low—the dachshunds arrived a little later, and the collie, seduced by their evil example, threw decorum to the winds, and seizing an end of the bright flounce where it fluttered under the angry clutch of Mary, he tugged at it with might and main, and this was the scene which greeted Sidney, as, returning from his walk, he approached his own gate.
He had met a herald of the war in the person of little Jim Shinar, who was fleeing home as fast as his sturdy legs would carry him, crying at the same time from pure bewilderment.
A word and a small coin healed all little Jim’s hurts, and Sidney proceeded, wondering what had frightened the child, whom he was used to seeing about the kitchen or in Sally’s wake when she went errands.