Three Lives | Page 4

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.
He was an unattractive youth enough, that butcher boy. Suspicion
began to close in around Sallie that she spent the evenings when Anna
was away, in company with this bad boy.
"Sallie is such a pretty girl, Miss Mathilda," Anna said, "and she is so
dumb and silly, and she puts on that red waist, and she crinkles up her
hair with irons so I have to laugh, and then I tell her if she only washed
her hands clean it would be better than all that fixing all the time, but
you can't do a thing with the young girls nowadays Miss Mathilda.
Sallie is a good girl but I got to watch her all the time."
Suspicion closed in around Sallie more and more, that she spent Anna's
evenings out with this boy sitting in the kitchen. One early morning
Anna's voice was sharply raised.
"Sallie this ain't the same banana that I brought home yesterday, for
Miss Mathilda, for her breakfast, and you was out early in the street
this morning, what was you doing there?"
"Nothing, Miss Annie, I just went out to see, that's all and that's the
same banana, 'deed it is Miss Annie."
"Sallie, how can you say so and after all I do for you, and Miss
Mathilda is so good to you. I never brought home no bananas yesterday
with specks on it like that. I know better, it was that boy was here last
night and ate it while I was away, and you was out to get another this
morning. I don't want no lying Sallie."
Sallie was stout in her defence but then she gave it up and she said it
was the boy who snatched it as he ran away at the sound of Anna's key
opening the outside door. "But I will never let him in again, Miss Annie,

'deed