Mildred had adhered to her resolution of being smart, as she termed it, and had succeeded so far in pleasing Mrs. Thompson that the old lady reluctantly consented to giving her a half holiday, and letting her go with Oliver to Beechwood one Saturday afternoon. At first Oliver objected to accompanying her, for he could not overcome his dread of the cross Judge, who, having conceived a dislike for Mildred, extended that dislike even to the inoffensive Oliver, always frowning wrathfully at him, and seldom speaking to him a civil word. The girl Mildred the Judge had only seen at a distance, for he never went near the gable-roof, and as he read his prayers at St. Luke’s, while Hepsy screamed hers at the Methodist chapel, there was no chance of his meeting her at church. Neither did he wish to see her, for so many stories had been fabricated concerning himself and the little girl, that he professed to hate the sound of her name. He knew her figure, though, and never did she pass down the avenue, and out into the highway, on the road to school, but he saw her from his window, watching her until out of sight, and wondering to himself who she was, and why that Maine woman had let her alone so long! It was just the same when she came back at night. Judge Howell knew almost to a minute when the blue pasteboard bonnet and spotted calico dress would enter the gate, and hence it was that just so sure as she stopped to pick a flower or stem of box (a thing she seldom failed to do), just so sure was he to scream at the top of his voice:
“Quit that, you trollop, and be off, I say.”
Once she had answered back:
“Yow, yow, yow! who’s afraid of you, old cross-patch!” while through the dusky twilight he had discerned the flourish of a tiny fist!
Nothing pleased the Judge more than grit, as he called it, and shaking his portly sides, he returned to the house, leaving the audacious child to gather as many flowers as she pleased. In spite of his professed aversion, there was, for the Judge, a strange fascination about the little Mildred, who, on one Saturday afternoon, was getting herself in readiness to visit him in his fortress. Great pains she took with her soft, brown hair, brushing it until her arm ached with the exercise, and then smoothing it with her hands until it shone like glass. Aunt Hepsy Thompson was very neat in her household arrangements, and the calico dress which Mildred wore was free from the least taint of dirt, as were the dimity pantalets, the child’s especial pride. A string of blue wax beads was suspended from her neck, and when her little straw bonnet was tied on, her toilet was complete.
Oliver, too, entering into Mildred’s spirit, had spent far more time than usual before the cracked looking-glass which hung upon the wall; but he was ready at last, and issued forth, equipped in his best, even to the cane which Mildred had purloined from its hiding-place, and which she kept concealed until Hepsy’s back was turned, when she adroitly slipped it into his hand and hurried him away.
It was a hazy October day, and here and there a gay-colored leaf was dropping silently from the trees, which grew around Beechwood. In the garden through which the children passed, for the sake of coming first to Rachel’s cabin, many bright autumnal flowers were in blossom; but for once Mildred’s fingers left them untouched. She was too intent upon the house, which, with its numerous chimneys, balconies, and windows, seemed to frown gloomily down upon her.
“What shall you say to the Judge?” Oliver asked, and Mildred answered:
“I don’t know what I shall say, but if he sasses me, it’s pretty likely I shall sass him back.”
Just then Rachel appeared in the door, and, spying the two children as they came through the garden-gate, she shaded her eyes with her tawny hand, to be sure she saw aright.