Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/21

 Helping wash clothes every week was fun, for all the Quarter women gathered together at the spring on wash-day, and their cheerful bustling about as they dipped up water and filled the tubs and big iron pots, and cut wood to keep the fires burning bright, made the work a frolic instead of drudgery.

At fifteen she was a slender, darting, high-spirited girl, a leader of the young set, and all ready to be married to July who was, perhaps, the wildest young buck in the Quarters. The girls Mary's age were much alike, with slender, well-shaped bodies, scarcely hidden by the plain skimpy garments they wore. They went bare-footed all the week, but every Sunday morning, after undoing their black woolly hair and rewrapping it into neat-rolls with white ball thread, they put on shoes and stockings and hats and Sunday dresses and went to church.

Mary looked much like the others, who were all her blood kin. But while most of them were slender, she was thin. While the others were a dark healthy brown, Mary's skin had a bluish bloom. Instead of being round and merry, Mary's eyes were long and keen, sometimes challenging, sometimes serious, sometimes flashing with impudence under their straight black brows, even when her mouth was laughing.