On an exceptionally dreary afternoon in November, had any one cared to look over the high board fence that bounds three sides of the Asylum yard, he might have seen an amazing sight and heard a still more amazing chorus:
"Little Sally Waters
Sitting in the sun,
Weeping and crying for a young man;
Rise, Sally, rise, Sally,
Wipe away your tears, Sally;
Turn to the east
And turn to the west,
And turn to the one that you love best!"
Higher and higher the voices of the three hundred orphans shrilled in unison as the owners thereof danced frantically around a small solitary figure in the middle of the ring of girls assembled in the yard on ----nd Street. Her coarse blue denim apron was thrown over her head; her face was bowed into her hands that rested on her knees. It was a picture of woe.
The last few words "you love best" rose to a shriek of exhortation. In the expectant silence that followed, "Sally" rose, pirouetted in a fashion worthy of a ballet dancer, then, with head down, fists clenched, arms tight at her sides, she made a sudden dash to break through the encircling wall of girls. She succeeded in making a breach by knocking the legs of three of the tallest out from under them; but two or more dozen arms, octopus-like, caught and held her. For a few minutes chaos reigned: legs, arms, hands, fingers, aprons, heads, stockings, hair, shoes of three hundred orphans were seemingly inextricably entangled. A bell clanged. The three hundred disentangled themselves with marvellous rapidity and, settling aprons, smoothing hair, pulling up stockings and down petticoats, they formed in a long double line. While waiting for the bell to ring the second warning, they stamped their feet, blew upon their cold fingers, and freely exercised their tongues.
"Yer dassn't try that again!" said the mate in line with the obstreperous "Sally" who had so scorned the invitation of the hundreds of girls to "turn to the one that she loved best".
"I dass ter!" was the defiant reply accompanied by the protrusion of a long thin tongue.
"Yer dassn't either!"
"I dass t'either!"
"Git out!" The first speaker nudged the other's ribs with her sharp elbow.
"Slap yer face for two cents!" shrieked the insulted "Sally", the Little Patti of the Vaudeville, and proceeded to carry out her threat. Whereupon Freckles, as she was known in the Asylum, set up a howl that was heard all along the line and turned upon her antagonist tooth and nail. At that moment the bell clanged a second time. A hush fell upon the multitude, broken only by a suppressed shriek that came from the vicinity of Freckles. A snicker ran down the line. The penalty for breaking silence after the second bell was "no supper", and not one of the three hundred cared to incur that—least of all Flibbertigibbet, the "Sally" of the game, who had forfeited her dinner, because she had been caught squabbling at morning prayers, and was now carrying about with her an empty stomach that was at bottom of her ugly mood.