“How in heaven’s name do you live?” asked Carin.
“We live ’cause we don’t die. We git up and go to bed,” said the girl. “It gits so still up there we stop talking. Why, we ’most forget the way to say words.”
“I should think you would,” said Azalea. “But what do you have to eat? How do you make money?”
“We don’t need no money. Not much, anyhow. We raise some corn and two or three hogs; and we have some chickens and a garden patch. Ma does some weaving. Pa used to hunt. Then, when he got hurt, I tried hunting.” She looked down at her maimed arm. “That’s all,” she said bitterly. “The Panthers is well named. They just live up a tree.” She gave a short, sharp laugh.
“How ever did your brother and you come to leave home?” demanded Azalea. “Didn’t they need you there?”
“Needed us terrible. But I couldn’t do work to ’mount to nothing, and Jake was just hanging ’round doing chores Pete could do as well. I goaded Jake on to coming down to the sawmill. I thought he might get some comforts for pa. And grandma, she’d got so mean and worried ma so, I got her to come along.” She paused for a moment, and then gave way to an outbreak of rage and misery. “We was getting to be like stumps,” she cried. “That’s what we was getting like—just like the stumps out in the clearing. You couldn’t tell we was humans. I—I couldn’t stand it no longer.” As she stood facing them in her ugliness and wretchedness, with her great mass of hair hanging about her half-bare shoulders, she seemed to be mysteriously redeemed from mere brutishness by this rebellion. Out of that sodden silence and poverty, that shame of inaction, her protest and purpose had sprung into life. For a moment the girls were silent with sympathy. Then Azalea said:
“We’ll teach you, Paralee, early and late. We’ll help you in every way we can.”
“Oh, we will,” agreed Carin. “And we can do so much more than you think, Paralee. Paralee?” she repeated. “Such an unusual name. Is it a—a family name?”
Paralee Panther gave a curious shrug.
“No!” she said with an accent of disgust. “That ain’t a name any more than Panther. They didn’t name me at all—called me Babe. When I was six, I got tired of it. I wanted a name—cried for a name—but they didn’t seem to think of none. I invented that name—Paralee. I thought it awful pretty then. I don’t think so now,” she added bluntly. “I think it’s a fool name. I wish my name was anything else—anything!”