This was exactly what Sal wanted, and taking the foot of Mary's bed for her rostrum, she read and preached so furiously, that Mary felt almost glad when Miss Grundy came up to stop the racket, and locked Sal in her own room.
CHAPTER VIII.
AT CHURCH.
The Sabbath following Mary's first acquaintance with Jenny was the one on which she was to go to church. Billy Bender promised that if his mother were not suffering from any new disease, he would come to stay with Alice, and in case he failed, the pleasant-looking woman was to take his place. Mary would have preferred going alone, but Sally begged so hard, and promised so fairly "not to make a speck of a face at the preacher, provided he used good grammar," that Mary finally asked Mr. Parker to let her go.
He consented willingly, saying he hoped the house would be peaceable for once. And now, it was hard telling which looked forward to the next Sunday with the most impatience, Mary or Sal, the latter of whom was anxious to see the fashions, as she fancied her wardrobe was getting out of date. To Mary's happiness there was one drawback. A few weeks before her mother's death she had given to Ella her straw hat, which she had outgrown, and now the only bonnet she possessed was the veritable blue one of which George Moreland had made fun, and which by this time was nearly worn out. Mrs. Campbell, who tried to do right and thought that she did, had noticed Mary's absence from church, and once on speaking of the subject before Hannah, the latter suggested that probably she had no bonnet, saying that the one which she wore at her mother's funeral was borrowed Mrs. Campbell immediately looked over her things, and selecting a straw which she herself had worn three years before, she tied a black ribbon across it, and sent it as a present to Mary.
The bonnet had been rather large for Mrs. Campbell, and was of course a world too big for Mary, whose face looked bit, as Sal expressed it, "like a yellow pippin stuck into the far end of a firkin." Miss Grundy, however, said "it was plenty good enough for a pauper," reminding Mary that "beggars shouldn't be choosers."
"So it is good enough for paupers like you," returned Sal, "but people who understand grammar always have a keen sense of the ridiculous."
Mary made no remark whatever, but she secretly wondered if Ella wore such a hat. Still her desire to see her sister and to visit her mother's grave, prevailed over all other feelings, and on Sunday morning it was a very happy child which at about nine o'clock bounded down the stairway, tidily dressed in a ten cent black lawn and a pair of clean white pantalets.
There was another circumstance, too, aside from the prospect of seeing Ella, which made her eyes sparkle until they were almost black. The night before, in looking over the articles of dress which she would need, she discovered that there was not a decent pair of stockings in her wardrobe. Mrs. Grundy, to whom she mentioned the fact, replied with a violent shoulder jerk, "For the land's sake! ain't you big enough to go to meetin' barefoot, or did you think we kept silk stockin's for our quality to wear?"
Before the kitchen looking-glass, Sal was practising a courtesy which she intended making to any one who chanced to notice her next day; but after overhearing Miss Grundy's remark, she suddenly brought her exercises to a close and left the kitchen. Arrived at her room, she commenced tumbling over a basket containing her wearing apparel, selecting from it a pair of fine cotton stockings which she had long preserved, because they were the last thing Willie's father ever gave her. "They are not much too large for her now," thought she, "but I guess I'll take a small seam clear through them." This being done, she waited until all around the house was still, and then creeping stealthily to Mary's room, she pinned the stockings to the pantalets, hanging the whole before the curtainless window, where the little girl could see them the moment she opened her eyes! Mary well knew to whom she was indebted for this unexpected pleasure, and in her accustomed prayer that morning she remembered the poor old crazy woman, asking that the light of reason might again dawn upon her darkened mind.