her as the girl whom I had seen in the wood yard.
I remember her sometimes as I saw her that day. She had straight brown hair the colour of my own, and her thick pig-tail, which had fallen over her shoulder as she worked, was tied with red yarn. Her face was a lovely, even cream colour, with no freckles such as diversified my own nose, and with no other colour in her cheek. Her hands were thin and veined, with long, agile fingers. The right sleeve of her reddish plaid dress was by now slit almost to the shoulder, and her bare arm showed, and it was nearly all wrist. She had on a boy’s heavy shoes, and these were nearly without buttons.
“What you doing?” I inquired, coming to a standstill.
She lifted her face and smiled, not a flash of a smile, but a slow smile of understanding me.
“This,” she replied, and went on with her task.
“What’s your name?” I demanded.
“Mary Elizabeth,” she answered, and did not ask me my name. This was her pathetic way of deference to me because my clothing and my “station” were other than hers.
