Sara Crewe | Page 6

them out of countenance, was too much for them.
"She always looks as if she was finding you out," said one girl, who
was sly and given to making mischief. "I am," said Sara promptly,
when she heard of it. "That's what I look at them for. I like to know
about people. I think them over afterward."
She never made any mischief herself or interfered with any one. She
talked very little, did as she was told, and thought a great deal. Nobody
knew, and in fact nobody cared, whether she was unhappy or happy,
unless, perhaps, it was Emily, who lived in the attic and slept on the
iron bedstead at night. Sara thought Emily understood her feelings,
though she was only wax and had a habit of staring herself. Sara used
to talk to her at night.
"You are the only friend I have in the world," she would say to her.
"Why don't you say something? Why don't you speak? Sometimes I am
sure you could, if you would try. It ought to make you try, to know you
are the only thing I have. If I were you, I should try. Why don't you

try?"
It really was a very strange feeling she had about Emily. It arose from
her being so desolate. She did not like to own to herself that her only
friend, her only companion, could feel and hear nothing. She wanted to
believe, or to pretend to believe, that Emily understood and
sympathized with her, that she heard her even though she did not speak
in answer. She used to put her in a chair sometimes and sit opposite to
her on the old red footstool, and stare at her and think and pretend
about her until her own eyes would grow large with something which
was almost like fear, particularly at night, when the garret was so still,
when the only sound that was to be heard was the occasional squeak
and scurry of rats in the wainscot. There were rat-holes in the garret,
and Sara detested rats, and was always glad Emily was with her when
she heard their hateful squeak and rush and scratching. One of her
"pretends" was that Emily was a kind of good witch and could protect
her. Poor little Sara! everything was "pretend" with her. She had a
strong imagination; there was almost more imagination than there was
Sara, and her whole forlorn, uncared-for child-life was made up of
imaginings. She imagined and pretended things until she almost
believed them, and she would scarcely have been surprised at any
remarkable thing that could have happened. So she insisted to herself
that Emily understood all about her troubles and was really her friend.
"As to answering," she used to say, "I don't answer very often. I never
answer when I can help it. When people are insulting you, there is
nothing so good for them as not to say a word-- just to look at them and
think. Miss Minchin turns pale with rage when I do it. Miss Amelia
looks frightened, so do the girls. They know you are stronger than they
are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage and they are
not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward.
There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it
in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies. I
scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like me than I am like myself.
Perhaps she would rather not answer her friends, even. She keeps it all
in her heart."

But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments, Sara did
not find it easy. When, after a long, hard day, in which she had been
sent here and there, sometimes on long errands, through wind and cold
and rain; and, when she came in wet and hungry, had been sent out
again because nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and
that her thin little legs might be tired, and her small body, clad in its
forlorn, too small finery, all too short and too tight, might be chilled;
when she had been given only harsh words and cold, slighting looks for
thanks, when the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when Miss
Minchin had been in her worst moods, and when she had seen the girls
sneering at her among themselves and making fun of her poor,
outgrown clothes--then Sara did not find Emily quite all that her sore,
proud, desolate little heart needed as the doll sat in her little old chair
and stared.
One of these nights, when she came up to the garret cold, hungry, tired,
and with a tempest raging in her small breast,