But the matron had tossed the bit of blue glass through the nearest window. "You'd cut yourself on it, Thelma," she justified herself in her stern voice. "I'll see if I can find another doll for you in the next box of presents that comes in. Now, don't cry like a baby. You're a great big girl. It was just a piece of broken old bottle. Well, Sally, you take charge of the new little girl. Make her feel at home. Give her a bath with that insect soap, and make a bundle of her clothes and take them down to Miss Pond."
She lifted her long, starched skirt as she stepped over one of the scrubber's puddles of water, then moved majestically through the door.
Clara, the nine-year-old orphan, stuck out her tongue as the white skirt swished through the door, then turned upon Sally, her little face sharp and ugly with hatred.
"Mean old thing! Always buttin' in! Can't let us have no fun at all! Some other kid'll find Thelma's sapphire and keep it offen her--"
"It isn't a sapphire," Sally said dully, her brush beginning to describe new semi-circles on the pine floor. "It's like she said--just a piece of broken old bottle. And she said she'd try to find you a doll, Thelma."
"You _said_ it was a sapphire, Sally. You said it was worth millions and millions of dollars. It _was_ a sapphire, long as you said it was, Sally!" Thelma sobbed, as grieved for the loss of illusion as for the loss of her treasure.
"I reckon I'm plumb foolish to go on play-acting all the time," Sally Ford said dully.
The three little girls and the 16-year-old "mother" of them scrubbed in silence for several minutes, doggedly hurrying to make up for lost time. Then Thelma, who could never nurse grief or anger, spoke cheerfully:
"Reckon the new kid's gettin' her phys'cal zamination. When _I_ come into the 'sylum you had to nearly boil me alive. 'N Mrs. Stone cut off all my hair clean to the skin. 'N 'en nobody wouldn't 'dopt me 'cause I looked like sich a scarecrow. But I got lotsa hair now, ain't I, Sal-lee?"
"Oh, somebody'll be adopting you first thing you know, and then I won't have any Thelma," Sally smiled at her.
"Say, Sal-lee" Clara wheedled, "why didn't nobody ever 'dopt you? _I_ think you're awful pretty. Sometimes it makes me feel all funny and cry-ey inside, you look so awful pretty. When you're play-actin'," she amended honestly. Sally Ford moved the big brush with angry vigor, while her pale face colored a dull red. "I ain't--I mean, I'm not pretty at all, Clara. But thank you just the same. I used to want to be adopted, but now I don't. I want to hurry up and get to be eighteen so's I can leave the asylum and make my own living. I want--" but she stopped herself in time. Not to these open-mouthed, wide-eared children could she tell her dream of dreams.