She used to dress out and make a great show, and she never
seemed to take much interest in the child, and folks began to say
she wasn't treated right.
"The woman had a hard time keeping a girl. For some reason one
wouldn't stay. They would leave and then talk about her awfully,
telling all kinds of things. People didn't believe it at first;
then they began to. They said that the woman made that little
thing, though she wasn't much over five years old, and small and
babyish for her age, do most of the work, what there was done; they
said the house used to look like a pig-sty when she didn't have
help. They said the little thing used to stand on a chair and wash
dishes, and they'd seen her carrying in sticks of wood most as big
as she was many a time, and they'd heard her mother scolding her.
The woman was a fine singer, and had a voice like a screech-owl
when she scolded.
"The father was away most of the time, and when that happened he
had been away out West for some weeks. There had been a married
man hanging about the mother for some time, and folks had talked
some; but they weren't sure there was anything wrong, and he was a
man very high up, with money, so they kept pretty still for fear he
would hear of it and make trouble for them, and of course nobody
was sure, though folks did say afterward that the father of the
child had ought to have been told.
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