Kansas University Weekly.
355
Literacy.
"That Sheldon Girl."
(A PERSON I DISLIKE. )
Well, now if that isn't Frances Annie Hooker across the street, she that was Frances Sheldon. 'Pears to me my eyes must be getting bad or she looks as young as she did when she visited in town several years ago.
Law me, is she —? yes—no, she went on by. I didn't think she would stop at this house. She never did have any love for me, or I for her, for that matter. 'Twas always cat and dog between us ever since that first day she came to school when we were children. She came to town with her folks one day, and the next day she started to school, and while she was standing there all rigged out, waiting for the teacher to come, I just asked her if she wouldn't like to chew my spruce gum awhile. I always had a givin' kind of spirit. But she instead of taking it, she sorta' peeped out, "No, thank you, Miss," kinda' scornful I thought, so I just took it out of my mouth and rubbed it into her yellow hair that was hanging down her back for all the world like "Little Red Riding Hood's" we see in the pictures. Well, she didn't say much. I guess she daren't, but she gave me one look, kinda' mad and proud; and to this day she never has spoke to me except once as I shall tell you. She always gave me that "way down yonder" hating look until I naturally took to hating her too.
I used to write things about her on the blackboard up high where she couldn't reach; but Jerry Simpkons nearly always rubbed them out, and then she would give him a little nod and smile which would make him blush. This meddlesomeness of Jerry's only riled me more and more; because Jerry walked home with me from singing school every Friday night, and had told me more than once when he gave me pepper-mint drops that he liked me. Queer, but Jerry never did tell me this except when he
gave me pepper-mint drops. Once when he told me this I tried to smile and nod like that Sheldon girl; but I guess it didn't look right in the moonlight, for Jerry sat right on Deacon Miller's stone fence and laughed 'till the tears came, and then he said, "Sallie Higgins, you ought to go with a show." Well I got real mad and told him that he could just take his old pepper-mints and about face, and that I was show enough to go home alone. But we made up again except Jerry didn't give me any more pepper-mints. He took me to several parties during the next few years, and I had begun to think that as I was out of school and he was training to be a teacher, (the next year), I had begun to think that probably he would begin the pepper-mints again, when who shall start to singing school but that yellow haired Sheldon girl.
In she comes with the preacher's daughter, all decked out in her boarding school finery, (where she had been at school all winter). "I allow," says I to Martha Garratt who sat beside me, "I allow that fine feathered birds can't always sing." I expect that they must have heard me, for the preacher's daughter, she that is now the second wife of Neal Garratt, says to Frances something about "crows croaking." But Frances just gave me that look of hers and said something about "good for evil."
Well, who should come in and sit down by her but Jerry Simpkons and he the best man singer in Milkville. She wasn't singing 'cause she didn't have a book, and he just gave her one corner of his book. Sing! Well you ought to have heard her, or them rather. 'Twas so beautiful that everybody in the church had to forget their manners and turn around or crane their necks to see. You see her voice was trained, and she being naturally kinda' sweet, just chimed in with Jerry's voice, who, sa I said before, was the best man singer in