"Oh, Zara, it's wrong to talk that way," said Bessie. "She's been good to me. She's looked after me all this time--and when I was sick she was ever so nice to me--" "Pooh!" said Zara. "Oh, I know I'm not good and sweet like you, Bessie! The teacher says that's why the nice girls won't play with me. But it isn't. I know--and it's the same way with you. If we had lots of money and pretty clothes and things like the rest of them, they wouldn't care. Look at you! You're nicer than any of them, but they don't have any more to do with you than with me. It's because we're poor." "I don't believe it's that, Zara. They know that I haven't got time to play with them, and that I can't ask them here, or go to their houses if they ask me. Some time--" "You're too good, Bessie. You never get angry at all. You act as if you ought to be grateful to Maw Hoover for looking after you. Don't she make you work like a hired girl, and pay you nothin' for it? You work all the time--she'd have to pay a hired girl good wages for what you do, and treat her decently, beside. You're so nice that everyone picks on you, just 'cause they know they can do it and you won't hit back." Glad of a chance to rest a little, Bessie had stopped her work to talk to Zara, and neither of the two girls heard a stealthy rustling among the leaves back of the woodshed, nor saw a grinning face that appeared around the corner. The first warning that they had that they were not alone came when a long arm reached out suddenly and a skinny, powerful hand grasped Zara's arm and dragged her from her perch. "Caught ye this time, ain't I?" said the owner of the hand and arm, appearing from around the corner of the shed. "My, but Maw'll pickle yer when she gits hold of yer!" "Jake Hoover!" exclaimed Bessie, indignantly. "You big sneak, you! Let her go this instant! Aren't you ashamed of yourself, hurtin' her like that?" Zara, caught off her guard, had soon collected herself, and begun to struggle in his grasp like the wild thing she was. But Jake Hoover only laughed, leering at the two girls. He was a tall, lanky, overgrown boy of seventeen, and he was enjoying himself thoroughly. He seemed to have inherited all his mother's meanness of disposition and readiness to find fault and to take delight in the unhappiness of others. Now, as Zara struggled, he twisted her wrist to make her stop, and only laughed at her cries of pain. "Let her go! She isn't hurting you!" begged Bessie. "Please, Jake, if you do, I'll help you do your chores to-night--I will, indeed!" "You'll have to do 'em anyhow," said Jake, still holding poor Zara. "I've got a dreadful headache. I'm too sick to do any work to-night." He made a face that he thought was comical. Zara, realizing that she was helpless against his greater strength, had stopped struggling, and he turned on her suddenly with a vicious glare.