Maid Sally — A Reader’s Guide

"And the Fairy sang to the poor child, and stroked its tangled hair, and smoothed its puckered cheeks.

"And it sang and sang until the little face that had been full of trouble grew bright with the cheer of heartsease.

"And still the Fairy sang and sang until, from very peacefulness, the child's eyes began to droop and softly close, just as the flowers droop and hang their pretty heads at twilight-song.

"And the Fairy sang on and on until the little creature in its arms had floated into Dreamland, and then had passed far beyond Dreamland into Fairy Town. And the child skipped through green fields and grassy meadows, went dancing through beds of flowers, and flying in and out of bushes full of sweetest scents. It drank the honey-drops the bees love, and sipped syrup of flowers, the humming-bird's food. And it heard ripples of music, such as are heard only in Fairy Town, and saw lovely little objects with wings of gauze, and eyes like sparks of light.

"And the Fairy sang and sang, and the child dreamed and dreamed, until every shadow of its life had faded away. And still it dreamed and dreamed--"

The little girl that had been listening under the hedge close to the stone wall, jumped at the sound of her name.

Oh, dear! _must_ she go back to Slipside Row, and hear the scolding voice of Mistress Cory Ann Brace, after being lifted almost into the clouds, and having a tiny peep into Fairy Town?

Could she come back to earth again, and cook, and scrub, and sew, and do all kinds of hard things, after hearing that wonderful scrap of glory about the dear, beautiful creatures called the Fairies?

"Yes, Mistress Cory Ann, I'm coming."

Swiftly back through Shady Path and Lover's Lane ran Sally, her frowsly head full of the strange, sweet fragment of fairy song that she had heard.

"Now, where've you been?" cried Mistress Cory Ann, as Sally came panting into the Row. "Not up to Ingleside, I hope! I had to run way up the path to make you hear. Haven't I told you more'n a hundred times you'd better keep away from there? Just let the people up at the big house catch you pokin' around, and back you'll come faster'n ever you went. Do you hear, Sally Dukeen?"

Strange it would have been had not Sally heard, for Mistress Cory Ann's voice was loud enough to have reached way across Lover's Lane. But Sally answered truthfully.

"Yes, I hear, Mistress Cory Ann, and I have not been on the Ingleside grounds at all."

No, she only had been roaming on the borders of the beautiful place, then hiding close to the stone wall.

A poor, hard-worked little girl it was that had raced back to Slipside Row. And no one to glance at her would have thought her pretty at all.

The people who lived in the row of houses were poor, but they all liked Sally. Yet all they knew about her was that her father had boarded with his little girl at Mistress Cory Ann Brace's house, when Mistress Brace lived in another town, and in a much finer house than any at Slipside Row. But he soon died, leaving his little girl, and some money, in Mistress Brace's care.

No one knew about the money, however, except Mistress Brace herself, but had it been used as it should have been, there would have been enough to have lasted some time, paying for the child's coming needs. But Mistress Brace hid it away, meaning to do with it exactly as she pleased, while she still kept Sally, because, being a smart and willing child, she could be of great use. Then Mistress Brace moved to a place called "The Flats," where she lived three years; now she had lived three more years at Slipside Row.

The mistress was not really cruel to Sally, neither was she kind. And very constantly at work she kept her, sweeping, cooking, sewing; in fact, doing anything that a growing child of eleven years could do. And if ever Sally grew tired, and was not brisk as usual, Mistress Brace would say that it was to the Town House she must go.

Now Sally had seen old Gran'ther Smithers and Aunt Melindy Duckers, who lived at the Town House, and she often had seen the old building itself, set far back in a grassy road that was not at all unpleasant, but so dreadful was the thought of ever having to go there herself, that no matter what Mistress Brace required of her, she tried her best to do it.