Part 38 (2/2)
”Don't call your mamma 'she.' 'She' is the cat.”
”Mamma, then. Mamma beat me.”
”Don't say she beat you.”
”I said mamma.”
”Well, don't talk about your mamma beating you. That is not a nice thing to talk about.”
”It's not a nice thing to do either,” said Beth judicially. ”And I never used to talk about it; didn't like to, you know. But now she--mamma--doesn't beat me any more--at least only sometimes when she forgets.”
”Ah, then, you have been a better girl.”
”No, not better--bigger. You see if I struck her back again she wouldn't like it.”
”Beth! Beth! strike your mother!”
”That was the danger,” said Beth, in her slow, distinct, imperturbable way. ”One day she made me so angry I very nearly struck her, and I told her so. That made her look queer, I can tell you. And she's never struck me since--except in a half-hearted sort of way, or when she forgot, and that didn't count, of course. But I think I know now how it was she used to beat me. I did just the same thing myself one day.
I beat Sammy----”
”Who is Sammy?” said Aunt Victoria, looking over her spectacles.
”Sammy Lee, you know.”
Aunt Victoria recollected, and felt she should improve the occasion, but was at a loss for a moment what to say. She was anxious above everything that Beth should talk to her freely, for how could she help the child if she did not know all she had in her mind? It is upon the things they are never allowed to mention that children brood unwholesomely.
”I thought that you were not allowed to know Sammy Lee,” she finally observed.
”No more I was,” Beth answered casually.
”Yet you knew him all the same?” Aunt Victoria ventured reproachfully.
”Aunt Victoria,” said Beth, ”did the Lord die for Sammy?”
”Ye--yes,” said Aunt Victoria, hesitating, not because she doubted the fact, but because she did not know what use Beth would make of it.
”Then why can't _I_ know him?” Beth asked.
”Oh, be--because Sammy does not live as if he were grateful to the Lord.”
”If he did, would he be a gentleman?” Beth asked.
”Yes,” Aunt Victoria answered decidedly.
Beth stopped snipping, and looked at her as if she were looking right through her, and out into the world beyond. Then she pursed up her mouth and shook her head.
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