“Oh, I’m afraid I shall have to make it up later,” said mamma, in pretended dismay.
“Indeed you will,” said Kristy, with a laugh; “I shan’t let you off a single story.”
“We’ll see,” said mamma smiling, as Mrs. Wilson began.
CHAPTER X
THE LOCKET TOLD
This is about a girl who drove the village cows out to pasture every morning and back to the village every evening. She had to pass a small cottage, almost hidden with flowers, where lived a mysterious woman whom the foolish and ignorant children of the neighborhood called “old witch,” simply because she had a hump on her back and was rarely seen, except when she rushed out to drive away some naughty child trying to steal her flowers through the fence. She attended to her garden very early in the morning before other people were out of bed, and so was rarely seen except on these occasions.
One day she was sitting at her window, behind the blinds as usual, when the girl I spoke of came by with her cows.
“There’s that cow-girl again,” said Hester Bartlett—for that was her name—“staring at my sweet peas as usual! I must go and drive her away or she’ll be putting her hand through the fence to get some. But what a wretched looking creature she is!” she went on thoughtfully, looking more closely. “She’s worse off than you are, Hester Bartlett, if she hasn’t got a humpback. Hardly a decent rag to her back—not a shoe or stocking—an old boy’s hat, picked out of a gutter likely. And how she does stare! looks as if she’d eat the flowers. Well anyway,” she went on more slowly, “she’s got good taste; she never turns an eye on my finest flowers, but stands glued to the sweet peas.”
Another silence; the ragged girl still spellbound without; the little, humpbacked mistress of the house peering through the blinds, an unusual feeling of pity restraining her from going to the door and putting to flight the strange, shy girl who seemed so fond of sweet peas.