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Show 106 "If you sassed Mrs. Peterson, you'll have to apologize, " said Mama, but I wouldn't. "I don't know what to do with the child, " she told Papa when he came home. When he found out the whole story he was on my side. "She deserved to be sassed. The child doesn't have to make any apology. " Neve teased her own children, setting the girls against the boys and visa versa. Leonard was made to dress up in girls' clothes when he did something wrong. Naturally, he hated all girls, but I got the brunt of it because I had to pass their house four times av day during school. Leonard started teasing me by taking my apple, a delicious winter pearmain from Kanosh, each day. I retaliated by loading one with cayenne pepper. When he came to take it from me I ran and squealed even more than I had other days. It was delicious revenge to see him bite into the pepper after he had wrested the apple from me. He chased me on horseback, the great grey knees of his horse coming terrifyingly close to me. For some reason I never told Mama or Papa; it was just one of the crosses I, as a little girl, had to bear, but when he led the attack on Rozina Harmon that was too much. Rozina was a little girl in our class from across the river. She had been born badly deformed, Mama said from marriage of cousins. Mama also said she had been marked when her mother stepped on a dead sheep before her birth. Her face resembled a sheep's face, and she had only two toes on each foot, two fingers on each hand. |
