off and sold it to Stuffy, and she's got five cents right now, and Mis' Tobey heard her, and of course she sent her home!"
Now a woman of character will always turn disaster to some advantage, and while Alice called to her child in a tone that left no place for disobedience, "Come right out from under the house, Sara"; when her daughter was again visible, "That settles it," said she, "not a single shell or stone or anything shall you take home with you." And she added, "You will have to leave Evelyn Dearie behind!"
The children in bed, Alice sat on the piazza, reflecting for the thousandth time how easy it would be to bring up one's children in solitude, when a voice from the neighboring cottage smote her ears, a rich throaty voice, a voice that carried.
"If it wasn't for other folks' children!" it said. "Now that Mis' Marcey, she's a reel nice woman, but, law! her Sara, terrible cunning but, oh, such a limb! I don't think my children's better'n other children, but there's just one thing, they do use good language, there's not one o' my boy's ever been profane—and now this little Sara Marcey, she comes and teaches my Stuffy cursin'—I caught her at it! Only six years old and she learned him this" Only a sibilant whisper informed Alice what it was Sara had taught Stuffy. There was silence, broken only by the flap of palmleaf fans, and then to Alice's ears came these words:
"I don't say but what I'll be real glad when them Marcey children go!"
