No girl had ever been ordered to fetch water for the use of the school or the master. It was the boys' business. Without a word, Flea took the big tin bucket and dipper from the window-sill and started to the door.
"Be quick about it!" was called after her.
She sauntered down the hill, insolent, reckless, and dangerous. She had had "tiffs" and tempers often before, but they were passing flurries that left no trace upon character. What had been done to her since she passed this spring on her way to school, less than seven hours ago, could never be forgotten or forgiven. The tinkle of the water into the trough, and the whispering among the grasses as it stole away to lower ground, irritated instead of soothing her. She kicked a stone into the ripples to change the sound, filled the dipper, drained it thirstily, and was about to brim it again, when Mrs. Fogg's wheedling whine made her look around. The old woman was watching her craftily.
"What you doin' totin' water, chile, like a nigger? Who set you 'bout that sort o' work?"
"The Old Harry!" said Flea, deliberately. Her eyes were black and deep; red fire burned behind and through them. "I told you that he lived up there!"—jerking her head backward in the direction of the school-house. "You'd better keep away, if you don't want to be scorched."
The old woman's laugh was like the rattling of pebbles in a gourd. "Lor' bless you, my sweet little lady! I ain't afeard of the Old Harry in broad daylight. They tell me he do treat you mighty mean, and that's a fac'. I wonder yo' pa stands it. I s'pose he daresn't cross the Major. The Major's mighty thick with the teacher. Ah well! the pore was made to be trompled inter the mire of the dus'. Thar's a day a-comin' when they'll have to answer for the deeds done in their bodies."
For the first time Flea detected a false ring in the snuffling cant. She started up the bank, lugging the heavy bucket; the water, plashing and trickling over the sides, wet her feet and ankles and angered her still further. Mrs. Fogg overtook her and seized one side of the handle.
"Lemme tote it fur you, deary! 'Tain't fitten work fur yo' pretty white han's. He mus' be a nimp o' the Evil One, sure 'nough, to let you be a carrier o' water an' a drawer o' wood, this yere fashion."
She was not to be shaken off, and they went together to the school-house door. There Flea nodded her thanks, lugged the bucket with both hands to the head of the room, and set it down upon a bench. She would not offer her tormentor what she had brought, as if she were his negro slave. In her absence her slate had been laid upon her seat. Both sides were bare! In fact, the teacher had found her work correct, and chose this ungracious mode of dismissing her for the day. She instantly concluded that he meant for her to do the sum over from the beginning. The match had touched the powder-magazine of temper. Rising to her feet she surveyed him with desperate eyes. He sat quite erect as he wrote, and worked his month oddly, compressing and loosening his lips, sometimes fast, sometimes slowly. Now he drew his eyebrows together, and then he would smile at what he was writing. He was comfortable and at peace with himself, this natty, prosperous, and powerful little man, whom she knew to be the vilest of the vile. If she thought that the blow would kill him, she would bring her big slate crashing down upon his skull. She could not kill him, but she could injure and mortify him.
