Sally, who had been nervously untying her brown paper parcel, bent her head lower so that she should not see the flare of hate in those pale blue eyes which she knew would follow upon her own answer. "I'm--I'm third year high." She did not have the courage to explain that she had just finished her third year, that she would graduate from the orphanage's high school next year.
"Third year?" Pearl was incredulous. "Oh, of course, the orphanage school! _My_ school is at least two years higher than yours. We prepare for college."
Sally nodded; what use to say that the orphanage school was a regular public school, too, that it also prepared for college? And that Sally herself had dreamed of working her way through college, even as David Nash was doing?
Eight o'clock was the supper hour on the farm in the summertime, when every hour of daylight had to be spent in the orchards and fields. When the long dining table, covered with red-and-brown-checked oilcloth, was finally set, down to the last iron-handled knife, Sally was faint with hunger, for supper was at six at the orphanage.
Sally had peeled a huge dishpan of potatoes, had shredded a giant head of pale green cabbage for coleslaw, had watched the pots of cooking string beans, turnips and carrots; had rolled in flour and then fried great slabs of round steak--all under the critical eye of Mrs. Carson, who had found herself free to pick over the day's harvest of blackberries for canning.
"I suppose we'll have to let Sally eat at the table with us," Pearl grumbled to her mother, heedless of the fact that Sally overheard. "In the city a family wouldn't dream of sitting down to table with the servants. I'm sick of living on a farm and treating the hired help like members of the family."
"I thought you liked having David Nash sit at table with us," Mrs. Carson reminded her.
"Well, David's different. He's a university student and a football hero," Pearl defended herself. "But the other hired men and the Orphans' Home girl--"
Clem Carson appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Supper ready?"
"Yes, Papa. Thanks for the candy, but I do wish you'd get it in a box, not in a paper sack," Pearl pouted. "I'll ring the bell. Hurry up and wash before the others come in."