“I am not grown up either, you see. Perhaps I shall grow up with you. She wouldn’t let me mix the bread to-night, and she never lets me take the butter out of the churn. And when we go to town shopping she always carries the money.”
Judith laughed a doleful little laugh, and went bravely up stairs to her turning-point.
It was moonlight, but she must light the candle for company; she would keep it burning all night, or as long as it would burn, if she dared.
She would scratch the match where she liked; Aunt Rody had no right to order her about so; she did not belong to Aunt Rody. She wished Aunt Affy would let her go to live always at the Parsonage.
Perhaps Cousin Don would if she wrote and told him all about Aunt Rody.
One night last week Aunt Rody had put her head in at the door and found her scratching a match on the bureau along the crack on its upper edge; she often did it; but Aunt Rody gave a scream and seized her by the arm and said angrily; “Judith Grey Mackenzie, don’t you do that again; I’ll whip you as sure as you live if I ever see you do it again. You might set the house on fire. Suppose a spark should fall into the upper drawer.”
But a spark never had. The upper drawer was shut tight; Aunt Rody had no right to catch her by the arm like that. And whip her! She wouldn’t dare. She would go to the parsonage and stay until Cousin Don came after her.
She was old enough to scratch a match where she liked.
With a sudden indignant stroke she drew the match under the top edge of the bureau: a snap and a flash.
“There,” she said aloud, triumphantly.