Sally’s assumption that rebuke sprang from illness was a very baffling thing to contend with, and Mrs. Didymus usually retired from the discussion beaten, to torment herself by wondering miserably if she was doing her duty by Sally.
If that worthy was not high in the estimation of the elders in Dole, she at least reigned supreme over the children. The bad ones she fought with and overcame, and the good ones she demoralized.
When Ted Ranger endeavoured to amuse himself by pulling Sally’s tow-coloured hair, he received such a scratching that he never forgot it, nor did the village for some time to come, for he bore Sally’s sign-manual upon his cheeks for weeks. When Mary Shinar’s fifteen-year-old brother heard of this, and deigned to consider Sally a foe worthy of his prowess, the whole school gathered to watch the combat which ensued promptly when Jed Shinar called her a “Charity Orphan.”
Sally precipitated herself upon him with such fury that he nearly fled from the first onslaught, and was extremely glad when the appearance of Mr. Didymus put a stop to the proceedings.
Jed’s nose was bleeding, and mentally he was considerably flustered. Sally’s hair was on end and her clothes were torn, but her self-possession was intact.
She retreated, led by the scandalized Mr. Didymus, but her fighting blood was up, and she called out opprobrious epithets to Jed till she was out of hearing—compliments which Jed’s inherent and cultivated respect for the preacher forbade his returning in kind.
“He called me a Charity Orphing,” she vouchsafed in explanation, when haled before Mrs. Didymus. “Now I know I’m a orphing, and I’m glad of it. Fathers and motherses mostly whacks the life out of you. But I won’t have no freckle-faced kid calling me a ‘Charity Orphing!’ Not if I’m well.”
Mr. and Mrs. Didymus remembered the gruesome stories of demoniac possession, and breathed more freely when Sally left the room.
Upon the day of poor Len Simpson’s funeral, Sally swung in luxurious idleness on the parsonage gate. Mrs. Didymus had gone early to the house of mourning.
Sally’s tow-coloured hair, which was kept cropped to within five inches of her head, stood out like quills upon the fretful porcupine. Ever since Sally had seen a stray circus poster, with the picture of the beautiful Albino lady, with her outstanding locks, she had determined to arrange her own coiffure in like manner, upon the first favourable opportunity. So this morning she had rubbed her hair well with yellow soap, and combed it straight out, with a result which surpassed her anticipations.