“Wouldn’t I just love t’ go back t’ Blueberry Alley!” she said to Mrs. Didymus. “Wouldn’t I just! My! I’d preach t’ ’em!”
Mrs. Didymus’ regret over Sally’s first aspiration was quite lost sight of in her delight at the latter idea. She thought of “the little maid of Samaria,” and smiled benignly upon Sally.
“That is well said,” she answered; “some day, perhaps, you may carry the tidings. Little children have before now worked miracles. But over-confidence is a dangerous thing. You must not be too hasty, Sally; do you feel prepared?”
“Do I? Don’t I jest? Sakes, I could tell ’em more about Hellfire and Damnation than ever they’ve heard of in all their born days. Do I feel prepared? Ruther! I’d just like old Lank Smith t’ step up t’ me, and begin aswearin’, I’d let him hear a word or two that’d astonish him. He thinks he can swear!”
“Sally,” said poor gentle Mrs. Didymus, hardly able to believe her ears, “Sally! Never let me hear you talk so again. The gospel is a Gospel of Peace.”
“Gorspel o’ Peace,” said Sally, looking at Mrs. Didymus pityingly, “Gorspel o’ Peace! Laws, mum, you are green! What chance d’ye think a Gorspel o’ Peace ’ud have in Blueberry Alley? It’s night sticks they needs there. Why, when I was a kid” (Sally had turned thirteen, but talked as if she was fifty) “there was missionars out o’ count came to Blueberry Alley, but they mostly left a sight quicker than they came. There was a young priest came there, though, and the first day he went through the Alley the boys started t’ have fun with him. Scrappin’ Johnstone picked up a handful of dirt and hit him in the ear with it, and the priest got very pale, and he sez, ‘It sez in the Scripter t’ turn the other cheek t’ the smiter,’ and with that he turned hisself round, and Scrappin’ Johnstone, thinking he had got a snap, let him have some soft mud on the other side. The whole Alley was on hand by that time. I was there. I mind I had a row myself a minnet after; but, anyhow, after Johnstone throwed the second handful he stood grinning in the priest’s face, and the priest he got sickly white, and sez very quiet like, ‘the Scripter sez t’ turn the other cheek t’ the smiter, and I’ve done that,’ sez he, ‘but,’ sez he, ‘it don’t say nothin’ as to what you’re t’ do after that,’ and with that he pitched into Scrappin’ Johnstone. He batted him over the head, and clipped him on the jaw, and biffed him back of the ear, and knocked him down, and stood him up and knocked him down again, then he laid him in the gutter, and stood over him, and told him he should behave hisself more gentle t’ folks, and that fightin’ was a sin, and that he shouldn’t take advantage of strangers, and then he gave Johnstone and the Alley an invite t’ come round and hear him preach in the chapel. The whole Alley’s Catholic now. Gorspel o’ Peace! That ain’t the sort o’ pursuasion Blueberry Alley needs.”
Mrs. Didymus groaned in spirit, and held her peace, absolutely afraid of Sally’s reminiscences. Sally and her ways were a terrible trial to the parsonage household, but good Mrs. Didymus could not contemplate the idea of permitting Sally to return to such an evil place as Blueberry Alley.
Sally was not well regarded in Dole, at least by the elect.
“One man can take a horse to the water, but twenty can’t make him drink,” was a saying frequently applied to Sally. This, being interpreted, meant that Mrs. Didymus could bring Sally to church, but that her authority, reinforced by the Dole frowns in the aggregate, could not make her behave herself whilst there.