The Adventures of Ann | Page 4

master's home. She was hustled off to bed,
then, without any of that beautiful supper. But she had just crept into
her bed in the small unfinished room up stairs where she slept, and was
lying there sobbing, when she heard a slow, fumbling step on the stairs.
Then the door opened, and Mrs. Deacon Thomas Wales, Samuel Wales'
mother, came in. She was a good old lady, and had always taken a great
fancy to her son's bound girl; and Ann, on her part, minded her better
than any one else. She hid her face in the tow sheet, when she saw
grandma. The old lady had on a long black silk apron. She held
something concealed under it, when she came in. Presently she
displayed it.
"There--child," said she, "here's a piece of sweet cake and a couple of
simballs, that I managed to save out for you. Jest set right up and eat
'em, and don't ever be so dretful naughty again, or I don't know what
will become of you."
This reproof, tempered with sweetness, had a salutary effect on Ann.
She sat up, and ate her sweet cake and simballs, and sobbed out her
contrition to grandma, and there was a marked improvement in her
conduct for some days.
Mrs. Polly was a born driver. She worked hard herself, and she
expected everybody about her to. The tasks which Ann had set her did
not seem as much out of proportion, then, as they would now. Still, her
mistress, even then, allowed her less time for play than was usual,
though it was all done in good faith, and not from any intentional
severity. As time went on, she grew really quite fond of the child, and
she was honestly desirous of doing her whole duty by her. If she had
had a daughter of her own, it is doubtful if her treatment of her would
have been much different.
Still, Ann was too young to understand all this, and, sometimes, though
she was strong and healthy, and not naturally averse to work, she would

rebel, when her mistress set her stints so long, and kept her at work
when other children were playing.
Once in a while she would confide in grandma, when Mrs. Polly sent
her over there on an errand and she had felt unusually aggrieved
because she had had to wind quills, or hetchel, instead of going
berrying, or some like pleasant amusement.
"Poor little cosset," grandma would say, pityingly. Then she would give
her a simball, and tell her she must "be a good girl, and not mind if she
couldn't play jest like the others, for she'd got to airn her own livin',
when she grew up, and she must learn to work."
Ann would go away comforted, but grandma would be privately
indignant. She was, as is apt to be the case, rather critical with her sons'
wives, and she thought "Sam'l's kept that poor little gal too stiddy at
work," and wished and wished she could shelter her under her own
grandmotherly wing, and feed her with simballs to her heart's content.
She was too wise to say anything to influence the child against her
mistress, however. She was always cautious about that, even while
pitying her. Once in a while she would speak her mind to her son, but
he was easy enough--Ann would not have found him a hard
task-master.
Still, Ann did not have to work hard enough to hurt her. The worst
consequences were that such a rigid rein on such a frisky little colt
perhaps had more to do with her "cutting up," as her mistress phrased it,
than she dreamed of. Moreover the thought of the indentures, securely
locked up in Mr. Wales' tall wooden desk, was forever in Ann's mind.
Half by dint of questioning various people, half by her own natural
logic she had settled it within herself, that at any time the possession of
these papers would set her free, and she could go back to her own
mother, whom she dimly remembered as being loud-voiced, but merry,
and very indulgent. However, Ann never meditated in earnest, taking
the indentures; indeed, the desk was always locked--it held other
documents more valuable than hers--and Samuel Wales carried the key
in his waistcoat-pocket.

She went to a dame's school, three months every year. Samuel Wales
carted half a cord of wood to pay for her schooling, and she learned to
write and read in the New England Primer. Next to her, on the split log
bench, sat a little girl named Hannah French. The two became fast
friends. Hannah was an only child, pretty and delicate, and very much
petted by her parents. No long hard tasks were set those soft little