stormy, wonderful music he had heard, made the longing to live so vehement that it hurt. Then the horror of Virginia’s words drifted through his tortured brain.

13

“What?” he ejaculated.

“Now I’m fifteen,” explained the girl, “I get a woman’s beating with a strap, you see. A while ago I got one that near killed me, but I never cried a tear. Matty was almost scared to death; she thought I was dead. Matty can lick hard, Matty can.”

Virginia sighed in recollection.

“You don’t mean to say the nigger whipped you?”

The girl shook her curly head.

“Whipped me! No! Matty don’t whip; she just licks with all her muscle.... Matty’s muscle’s as strong as a tree limb.”

Mr. Singleton bowed his head. It had never occurred to him in all those absent years that the child was being abused. How simply she had told her tale of suffering!

“But I’m fifteen now,” she repeated gladly, “so I stand up, spread my feet like this”—she rose and suited the action to the words—“and Matty lays her on damn hard, too.”

He covered his mouth with one thin hand, choked down a cough, and endeavored to change the subject.

“And school? Have you been to school?”

“Oh, yes!” assured the girl, sitting down again. “I went to school back in the hills. There were only five boys and me. There wasn’t any girls. I wish there had been.” 14

14

“You like girls, I imagine, then,” said her father.

“Oh, yes, sir! Yes, indeed, sir! I often walk five miles to play a while with one. None of the mothers around Mottville Corners’ll let their girls be with me. You see, this house has a bad name.”

A deep crimson dyed the man’s ashen skin. He made as if to speak, but Jinnie went on.

“Over in the Willow Creek settlement the kids are awful bad, but I get along with ’em fine, because I love ’em right out of being hellish.”

She was gazing straight into her 

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