Girl Alone

r, three of them pitifully young for the hard work, the baby of them being only six, the oldest nine. The fourth, who directed their labors, rising from her knees sometimes

g up and down in a pail of soapy water, "play-act for us, won't you, Sal-lee? 'Tend

of her own faded blue and white gingham, an exact replica, except for size, of the frocks wo

it behind a well-shaped ear, and smiled fondly upon the tiny pleader. It was a miracle-working smile. Before the miracle, that s

blacker than her hair, lost their sullenness, assumed a lovely, provocative arch. Her white cheeks gleamed. Her little pale mouth, unpuckered of its frown, bloomed suddenly, like a tea rose opening. Even,

But all of you will have to work twice as hard after I'

had been wiping up surplus water after Sally's vigorous scrubbing were abandoned, and the three of them, moving in unison

of black hair. Her nimble, thin fingers searched for and found three crimped wire hairpins which she secreted in the meshes of the plait. In a tri

s in ecstasy. "And don't forget to make up a verse about me, Sal-lee! I'm a

ld by the two other little girls in faded gingham, and her dramatically deepened voice was chanting "verses" which she had c

e world does this mean?

s voice leading the chorus, chanted in a monotonous sing-song: "Good morning, Mrs. Stone. We hope you are well." It was the goo

answered severely but automatically. She never spoke except severely

ll lock you in the dark room without any supper. You're a great big girl, nearly six and a half years old, and you have to learn to work to earn your board and keep. As for you, Sally-well I'm surpri

ttle old woman again; but her hands trembled as she gathered up

his happen again. I depend on you big girls to help me discipline the little ones. And by the way Sally, there's a new girl.

was nothing in her voice to indicate that she had loved

s fond of Sally, in her own way. "She has yellow curls, though I suspect her mother, who has just died and who was a stock company actress, used

s in your bed?" Her broad, heavy palm, sweeping expertly down the sheet-c

raded my broken doll for it. I look through it and it makes everything look pretty and blue,"

find another doll for you in the next box of presents that comes in. Now, don't cry like a baby. You're a great big girl. It was just a piece of broken old bottle. Well, S

epped over one of the scrubber's puddles of w

s the white skirt swished through the door, then turned

t us have no fun at all! Some other kid'll f

e new semi-circles on the pine floor. "It's like she said-just a piece

ions of dollars. It was a sapphire, long as you said it was, Sally!" Thelma

to go on play-acting all the

silence for several minutes, doggedly hurrying to make up for lost tim

nearly boil me alive. 'N Mrs. Stone cut off all my hair clean to the skin. 'N 'en nobody would

st thing you know, and then I won't

estly. Sally Ford moved the big brush with angry vigor, while her pale face colored a dull red. "I ain't-I mean, I'm not pretty at all, Clara. But thank you just the same. I used to want to be adopted, but now I don't.

tsy, the baby of the group, insisted. "Yo

big girls told me I was sickly and awf'ly tiny and scrawny when I was brought in, so nobody wanted to adopt me. They don't like sickly babies," she

has kept Sally here, year in and year out, jist 'cause she's so good to us little kids. Miss Pond said Sally is better'n any trained nu

, "I'm scared of people-outside. I'm scared of all grown-up people, especially of adopters," she blurted miserably. "I can't sashay up and down before 'em and act cute

when visitors come and we have to show off our company manners. I hate visitors! T

st odor of yellow soap when Miss Pond, who worked in the office on the first flo

Her golden hair hung in precisely arranged curls to her shoulders. Her dress was of pink crepe de chine, trimmed with many yards of cream-colored lace. There were pink silk socks a

and kind to orphans. "She's feeling a little homesick now and I know you wil

t her arms were already yearning to gather the lit

"Mrs. Stone says her hair must be washed and then braided, like the other children's. Eloise tells us it isn't naturall

tested passionately, a white-slippered foot flyi

nd Miss Pond scurried away, her kind eyes brimming with tears, her kind heart swelling with impractical plans for finding luxurious homes and incredibly kind foster parents for all

le charge were among them. But only the sharp eyes of the other orphans could have detected that the child who clung forlornly to Sally's hand was a newcomer. The golden curls had disappeared, and in their place were two short yellow braids, the ends tied with bits of old shoe-stri

long, narrow pine tables covered with torn, much-scrubbed white oilcloth, Eloise, coached in that ritual as we

hee for this food and for all th

erself looking upon the familiar scene with the eyes of the frightened little new orphan. It was a game that Sally For

irls' quarters by the big kitchen garden; showed her the bare schoolrooms, in which Sally herself had just completed the third year of high school. It was Sally who pridefully showed her the meagerly equipped gymnasium, the

ess and monotonous now, even taking on a little of the institutional whine, was still the same heartbroken protest she

s of fun. And Christmas is awf'ly nice. Every girl gets an orange and a litt

friends brung it to her-boxes and boxes of it, and flowers,

Eloise, without rebuking her, to the front lawn which always made visitors exclaim, "Why, h

studded with round or star-shaped beds of bright flowers. From the front, the building looked stately and grand, too, with its clean red bricks and its big, fluted white pillars. They were the only t

, the first happy sound she had

of that vast velvet carpet, entirely unconscious that she was committing one of the major crim

Eloise! We ain't allowed to touch

of a flaming orange and red nasturtiu

. "There isn't any place at all you could hide it, and if you carried it in your hand you'd get a l

sparkling with anticipation, were hurrying up the path that led around the main building to the weaving rooms in which Sally wa

you. In the office!" she added, her voi

her face, which had been pretty and glowing a moment

ut to see if she were overheard. "Oh, Sal-lee, don't let 'em 'dopt you! We wouldn't have nobody to play-act for

. "Nobody wants to adopt a 16-year-old girl. Her

with a fear which was reflected in her darkling blue eyes, and in the deepened pallor of her cheeks. But, oh, maybe it wasn't that! Why did she always have to worry about

s to her feet. She was breathless, glowing, when sh

the fear that had kept her awake many nights on her narrow cot, since her sixteenth birthday had passed. She cowered against the door, clinging to the knob as if she were trying to screw up her courage

'How do you do?' to the gentleman.... The girls are taught the finest of

arson," Sally ga

rs. Stone went on briskly, in her pleasant "company voice

at necessary act performed, he eyed Sally with a keen, speculative gaze. His lean face was tanned to the color and texture o

her when I was here last June. Wouldn't le

one of our dear little girls until she is sixteen years old. Sally was sixteen last week, and now that school is out, I see no reason why she shouldn't ma

shrewd, screwed-up black eyes upon Sally again. "Strong, healthy girl, I

nuckled brown hands fastened on her forearms, and when she shrank from his touch he nodded with satisfaction. "Good big mu

been raised in the Home, she's used to work, Mr. Carson, although no one could say we are not good to our girl

nagging me for money for her finery. But you know how girls are, mum. Now, seeing as how my wife's near crazy with work, what with the field hands to feed and a

rmitory of nineteen of the small girls, and it is going to upset things a bit, for tonight anyway. But I understand how it is with you. You're going to be in

tone. "And thank you, mum, I'll take good care of the young-un. But I guess she thinks she's a young lady

ing a nice home for the summer-a nice country home,

hority and to obey implicitly, gulped against the lump in her throat so

why is your heart broken? Why do you cry like that?" she could not have answered intelligently. She would have groped for words to express that quality within her that burned a steady flame all these years, unqu

ed by Clem Carson and his family. To eat the bitter bread of charity, to slave for the food she put into her stomach, which craved delicacies she had never tasted; to be treated as a serv

ng "hired girls" whom they would not have to pay. Ca

gay and bright and saucy. Annie Springer had been his choice the next year, and Annie had never come back. The story that drifted into the orphanage by some my

with Eddie Cobb, one of the orphaned boys, since she was thirteen or fourteen years old. Eddie had run away from the Home

t by the police and sent to the reformatory, the particular hell with which every orphan was threatened if she dared disobey even a minor rule of the Home. Deli

by had thrown herself from a fifth-floor window of the reformatory. Ruby, dead, was safe now from charity and e

hing voice broke in on Sally's grief and fear, a b

girl every summer, is going to take m

will have a real home, with plenty to eat and maybe s

of enforced acquiescence. "But, oh, Miss Pond, I'd been ho

t, mercy me, I mustn't be running on like this," Miss Pond

f before I go away? I know you're not allowed to, but oh, Miss Pond, please! It's s

did it, or maybe it was the p

get your card out of the files now; Mrs. Stone might come and catch me. But I'll make some excuse to come up to the locker room when you'r

like your manner to Mr. Carson, Sally. But run along now and pack. You may take your Sunday dress and shoes, and one of your every-day ginghams. Mr.

led out of the door, but before it closed she ex

orridor. "I'm going to know! About my mother!" And color swept over her face, perfo

night bath that afternoon. In spite of her terror of the future, the girl who had never known any home but a state orphan asylum f

herself on a ragged wisp of grayish-white Turkish toweling, Sally surveyed her slim, white body with shy pride. Shorn of the o

that could not quite succeed in destroying her virginal loveliness. "Sweet sixteen and-never been kissed," she

late to see kind Miss Pond, she j

in admiration as Sally slipped, breathless, into the locker-ro

me-and my mother?" Sally brushed the compli

e summer, but I copied the data. You go ahead with your packing while I tell you what I found out," Miss

about her neck, but almost immediately she whirled upon Miss Pond, her eyes implori

ly. "The record says you were brought here May 9, 1912, just twelve years ago, by a woman who said you we

ouded, as her nimble brain did a quick sum in mental arithmetic.

forty herself, said rather tartly. "But let me hurry on. She gave poverty and illness

elicate face; quick tears for the dead father and th

the woman, Mrs. Ford, had left the city-it was Stanton, thirty miles from here-and that no one knew where she had gone. From that day to this we have had n

between her own thin hands, not noticing that the slip of paper fluttered to the floor. "She didn't write to know how I w

n any papers of the state of her death," Miss Pond added conscientiously. "You mustn't grieve, Sally. You're nearly g

ow, Miss Pond. And thank you a million ti

had scribbled the memorandum of Sally's pitifully meager life history. But Sally had not forgotten it. She sn

small brown paper parcel in her lap, color staining her neck and cheeks and brow, for Mrs. Stone, stiffly, awkwardly bu

ut with young men, but you'll be meeting the hired hands on the farm. You-you mustn't let them take liberties of any kind with you. We try to give you girls in the Home a sound religious

Sally answered in

upon the turning knob of the door. In a moment Clem Carson was edging in, hi

ly crouch lower in her chair. "Looking pretty as a picture, too! With two pretty girls in m

rl walked together down the long cement walk to where his car was parked at the curb, nearly three hundred little girls

e! Hope you ha

te me a letter, Sal-l

rld. There were tears in her eyes, and, queerly, for she thought she hated the Home, a stab of homesickness shooting through her heart. How safe they were, there in the

gure as graceful as a fawn's, over the thick velvet carpet of the lawn. When she reached the high fence tha

ove you all, and I'm sorry for every mean thing I ever did to any of you, and I hope you a

l-lee!" a little wh

opening, against the babyish mouth of little Eloise

ody to play-act for us now!" Betsy wailed, pr