“I don't care,” said Alice Sweet, with quite audible impudence.
The black eye at the knot-hole in the fence which separated the girls' yard from the boys' was replaced by a blue one. Maria's attention was attracted towards it by an audible titter from the other side.
“Every one of you boys march straight into the school-house,” she called. Then she led Jessy into a little room which was dedicated to the teacher's outside wraps. The room was little more than a closet, and very cold. Maria put her arm around Jessy and felt with horror the little, naked body under the poor frock.
“For Heaven's sake, child, why are you out with so little on such a day as this?” she cried out.
Jessy began to cry. She had heretofore maintained a sullen silence of depression under taunts, but a kind word was too much for her.
“I 'ain't got no underclothes, teacher; I 'ain't, honest,” she sobbed. “I'd outgrowed all my last year's ones, and Mamie she's got 'em; and my mother she 'ain't got no money to buy any more, and my father he's away on a drunk. I can't help it; I can't, honest, teacher.”
Maria gazed at the little thing in a sort of horror. “Do you mean to say that you have actually nothing to put on but your dress, Jessy Ramsey?” said she.
“I can't help it, honest, teacher,” sobbed Jessy Ramsey.
Maria continued to gaze at her, then she led her into the school-room and rang the bell furiously. When the scholars were all in their places, she opened her lips to express her mind to them, but a second's reflection seemed to show her the futility of it. Instead, she called the geography class.
After school that night, Maria, instead of going home, went straight to Jessy Ramsey's home, which was about half a mile from the school-house. She held Jessy, who wore a threadbare little cape over her frock, by the hand. Franky Ramsey and Mamie Ramsey, Jessy's younger brother and sister, tagged timidly behind her. Finally, Maria waited for them to come up with her, which they did with a cringing air.