Ole Cap'n Plunkett was the same, and my! his wife,--Mis'
Pettibone thet was,--she was thet high an' mighty ye couldn't come anigh
her with a ten-foot pole! So it's nateral fur Miss Prue. Now, Sairay,
I'm goin' over to my cousin Lizy's a while, an' if baby--why, he's gone
to sleep, ain't he?"
Sara nodded smilingly, and her mollified mother said, more gently,--
"Wall, my dear, lay him in the cradle, an' then you kin hev a good time
a-readin' while I'm gone. I s'pose you kain't help takin' to books arter
all, seein' as your ma was a school-ma'am."
"Thank you," said Sara, more for the kindness of the tone than the
words, and the little domestic squall that time passed over quite
harmlessly.
But these were of daily, almost hourly occurrence. Sara's larger,
broader nature tried to ignore the petty pin-pricks of her stepmother's
narrower, more fretful one; but at times her whole soul rose up in
rebellion, and she flashed out some fiercely sarcastic or denunciatory
answer that reduced the latter to tears and moans, which in time forced
from the girl concessions and apologies.
To do the little woman justice, she was often sorely tried by Sara's
grand, self-contained airs,--unconscious as they were,--and by her
obliviousness to many of the trivialities and practicalities of life.
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