‘What is it?’ asked his sister. Noiselessly she glided from her bed and across the floor to his side.
‘It’s the Applewoman,’ said Giles. ‘Don’t you hear her? She’s away down the street around the corner. Soon you’ll see her.’
‘I don’t hear anything,’ said Anne. ‘Only the cracking of the nuts downstairs. I wish I had some. It makes me hungry to listen to them.’
‘Stop talking,’ said her brother, ‘and then you’ll hear. It is she, I tell you. A long way off. But you can catch it. “Apples! Fine pippins for sale!” It’s what she always cries.’
‘The Applewoman!’ said little Anne thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why grown-up people don’t seem to like her, Giles? Do you know?’
‘Oh, pshaw!’ said her brother. ‘I don’t believe they know themselves. They don’t understand her, I reckon. People are nearly always afraid of what they can’t understand—except the very brave ones, maybe. I never could see anything wrong with the Applewoman—though it’s true I’ve never spoken to her. “Shragga the Witch!” What a name to call her! But have you noticed, it is only the grown-ups who call her that? To the children she is always just “Agnes the Applewoman”. I don’t believe that woman ever did a bad deed in her whole life—for all her ugly looks.’
‘Shragga the Witch!’ murmured Anne. ‘It is indeed a terrible name to fasten upon anyone. Yet she is queer, Giles. Do you know what Mary Seymour says about her? She says she’s a mind-reader.’
‘What on earth is that?’ asked Giles.
‘She can read a person’s thoughts—or so Mary says. She can tell what you’re thinking about without your saying a word.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe that,’ said Giles. ‘Maybe she just guesses—and guesses right.’