For a few minutes the poor man could do nothing to free
himself. It was wonderful what strength the little creature had: she
clinched her tiny fingers in the braid, and pulled, and pulled.
Then, all at once, her grasp slackened, and off flew her master's
steeple-crowned hat into the dust, and the neat black ribbon on the
end of the queue followed it. Samuel Wales reined up his horse with a
jerk then, and turned round, and administered a sounding box on each
of his apprentice's ears. Then he dismounted, amid shouts of laughter
from the spectators, and got a man to hold the horse while he went
back and picked up his hat and ribbon.
He had no further trouble. The boxes seemed to have subdued Ann
effectually. But he pondered uneasily all the way home on the small
vessel of wrath which was perched up behind him, and there was a
tingling sensation at the roots of his queue. He wondered what Polly
would say. The first glance at her face, when he lifted Ann off the
horse at his own door, confirmed his fears. She expressed her mind,
in a womanly way, by whispering in his ear at the first opportunity,
"She's as black as an Injun."
After Ann had eaten her supper, and had been tucked away between some
tow sheets and homespun blankets in a trundle-bed, she heard the whole
story, and lifted up her hands with horror.
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