She was weeping over the licking her mother
had given her.
* * * * *
"I'm afraid your cousin Phoebe will come to no good end some day, if she
don't watch out," said my grandmother to me, "and I don't like you to
play with her much.... I'm going to have Aunt Rachel take her home
soon" ... after a pause, "as sure as I have ten fingers she'll grow up
to be a bad woman."
* * * * *
"Granma, what is a bad woman?"
* * * * *
Aunt Rachel and Cousin Phoebe returned home. Uncle Josh, that slack old
vagabond with his furtive, kindly eye-glances, came for them with a
livery rig.
* * * * *
I think I read every dime novel published, during those years of my
childhood ... across the bridge that Elton had helped build, the new
bridge that spanned the Hickory River, and over the railroad tracks,
stood a news-stand, that was run by an old, near-sighted woman. As she
sat tending counter and knitting, I bought her books ... but for each
dime laid down before her, I stole three extra thrillers from under her
very eye.
From my grandfather's library I dug up a book on the Hawaiian Islands,
written by some missionary. In it I found a story of how the natives
speared fish off the edges of reefs. Straightway I procured a pitchfork.
Pages:
6
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