“I never thought old Katy would act so Miss Mathilda,” Anna said, “when she was so sorry when you went away, and I gave her full wages all the summer, but they are all alike Miss Mathilda, there isn’t one of them that’s fit to trust.  You know how Katy said she liked you, Miss Mathilda, and went on about it when you went away and then she was so good and worked all right until the middle of the summer, when I got sick, and then she went away and left me all alone and took a place out in the country, where they gave her some more money.  She didn’t say a word, Miss Mathilda, she just went off and left me there alone when I was sick after that awful hot summer that we had, and after all we done for her when she had no place to go, and all summer I gave her better things to eat than I had for myself.  Miss Mathilda, there isn’t one of them has any sense of what’s the right way for a girl to do, not one of them.”

Old Katy was never heard from any more.

No under servant was decided upon now for several months.  Many came and many went, and none of them would do.  At last Anna heard of Sallie.

Sallie was the oldest girl in a family of eleven and Sallie was just sixteen years old.  From Sallie down they came always littler and littler in her family, and all of them were always out at work excepting only the few littlest of them all.

Sallie was a pretty blonde and smiling german girl, and stupid and a little silly.  The littler they came in her family the brighter they all were.  The brightest of them all was a little girl of ten.  She did a good day’s work washing dishes for a man and wife in a saloon, and she earned a fair day’s wage, and then there was one littler still.  She only worked for half the day.  She did the house work for a bachelor doctor.  She did it all, all of the housework and received each week her eight cents for her wage.  Anna was always indignant when she told that story.

“I think he ought to give her ten cents Miss Mathilda any way.  Eight cents is so mean when she does all his work and she is such a bright little thing too, not stupid like our Sallie.  Sallie would never learn to do a thing if I didn’t scold her all the time, but Sallie is a good girl, and I take care and she will do all right.”

Sallie was a good, obedient german child.  She never answered Anna back, no more did Peter, old Baby and little Rags and so though always Anna’s voice was sharply raised in strong rebuke and worn expostulation, they were a happy family all there together in the kitchen.

Anna was a mother now to Sallie, a good incessant german mother who watched and scolded hard to keep the girl from any evil step.  Sallie’s temptations and transgressions were much like those of naughty Peter and jolly little Rags, and Anna took the same way to keep all three from doing what was bad.

Sallie’s chief badness besides forgetting all the time and never washing her hands clean to serve at table, was the butcher boy.