Here pushing her tangled hair back from her brow, she pointed to a long scar, saying, “Do you see that?” Mary nodded, and Sal continued:  “When I first came here, the overseer was a bad man, not at all like Mr. Parker.  One day he told me to wash the dinner dishes, and to use more than a pint of water, too, so I gathered them up and threw them into the well; but this method of washing did not suit the overseer’s ideas of housekeeping, so he took a raw hide, and said he would either ‘break my will,’ or ‘break my neck,’ and because he could not break my will, and dared not break my neck, he contented himself with breaking my head.  Every blow that he struck me was like melted lead poured into my brains, which puffed out like sausages, and have never recovered their wonted dimensions.  The town took the matter up, but I don’t remember much about it, for I went to sleep again, and when I woke the overseer was gone, and Mr. Parker was here in his place.  I was chained like a wild beast under the garret stairs, and Miss Grundy’s broad, stiff back was hung there for a door.  Nobody asks me to work now, but occasionally, just for pastime, I go into Mrs. Parker’s room and read to her, and tell her about my Willie, who went away.”

“How long has Mrs. Parker been sick?” asked Mary.

“I’m no judge of time,” answered Sal, “but it seems a great while, for since her illness Miss Grundy has been at the helm in the kitchen, and perhaps it is all right that she should be, for somebody must manage, and, as I had declared I would not work, ’twould hardly have been consistent to change my mind.  And then, too, Miss Grundy seems admirably suited for the place.  Her forte is among pots and kettles, and she will get the most work out of the boarders, keep them on the least fare, and put more money into Mr. Parker’s pocket at the end of a year, than any one he could hire, and this is the secret of his bearing so much from her.”

“But why does she want to fill his pockets with money?”

Sal gave a knowing wink and replied, “You are not old enough to see into every thing, so I dare say you wouldn’t understand me if I should hint that Mrs. Parker has the consumption, and can’t live always.”  Mary’s looks plainly told that this remark had given her no idea whatever, and Sal continued, “I knew you wouldn’t understand, for you haven’t my discernment to begin with, and then you were never sent away to school, were you?”

“No, ma’am, was you?” asked Mary.

“Say ‘were you,’ if you please, it is more euphonious Yes, I was at school in Leicester two years, and was called the best grammarian there, but since I’ve sojourned with this kind of people, I’ve nearly lost my refinement.  To be sure I aim at exclusiveness, and now you’ve come I shall cut them all, with the exception of Uncle Peter, who would be rather genteel if he knew more of grammar.”

Just then Alice awoke, and Sally, who had not observed her before, sprang forward with a scream of joy, and seizing the child in her arms, threw her up towards the ceiling, catching her as she came down as easily as she would a feather.  Strange to say Alice neither manifested any fear of the woman, nor dislike of the play, but laid her head on Sally’s shoulder as naturally as if it had been her mother.