She told
what she had heard, and finally folks began to think they had
better enter that house and see if there was anything wrong.
"Well, they did enter it, and they found that child dead, locked in
one of the rooms. (Mrs. Dennison and Mrs. Bird never used that
room; it was a back bedroom on the second floor.)
"Yes, they found that poor child there, starved to death, and
frozen, though they weren't sure she had frozen to death, for she
was in bed with clothes enough to keep her pretty warm when she was
alive. But she had been there a week, and she was nothing but skin
and bone. It looked as if the mother had locked her into the house
when she went away, and told her not to make any noise for fear the
neighbours would hear her and find out that she herself had gone.
"Mrs. Dennison said she couldn't really believe that the woman had
meant to have her own child starved to death. Probably she thought
the little thing would raise somebody, or folks would try to get in
the house and find her. Well, whatever she thought, there the
child was, dead.
"But that wasn't all. The father came home, right in the midst of
it; the child was just buried, and he was beside himself.
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