She tried to explain it by telling me that my father was no longer her husband, but I couldn’t understand. And, Dorothy, I don’t understand it now. Of course I know now that my parents had been divorced, but I don’t and can’t understand how a woman who has been a man’s wife can make up her mind to be any other man’s wife so long as her first husband lives. I suppose I was a very uncompromising little girl at that time, and I was very apt to say what I thought about things without any flinching from ugly truths. So, when they went on trying to hush me by telling me that Campbell was now my papa, I flew into a great rage. I took hold of my hair and tore out great locks of it. I tried to tear off my clothes, and all the time I was saying things that caused all the passengers in the station to gather about us; some of them laughing, and some looking on very solemnly, as I shrieked:—
“I won’t have him for my new papa! He’s a swindler and a scoundrel! My papa told you so a long time ago! I hate him, and I’m going to hate you now and for ever, amen!”
I didn’t know what the words meant, but they had been strongly impressed upon my memory by the vehemence with which my father had uttered them long before. As for the final phrase, with the “amen” at the end of it, I had heard it in church, and had somehow got the impression that it was some kind of highly exalted curse.
Campbell was angry almost beyond control. I think he would have liked to kill me, and I think he would have done so but for all those people standing by while I so bitterly vituperated him. As he could not do that, he said angrily to my grandmother:—
“Take her away! Take her away quick!”
My grandmother then threw my little cloak over my head to suppress my voice, and hurried me into a carriage. To some woman who drove with us to our hotel, my grandmother said, thinking I would not understand:—
“I’m seriously afraid the child is right.”
I understood, and I liked my grandmother better than ever, after that.
Chapter the Fourth
WHEN Campbell and my mother came back from their journey, he seemed determined to placate me. He brought me many toys. Among them was a big doll that could open and shut its eyes and cry. I did not utter a word of thanks. I didn’t feel any gratitude or pleasure. I took the toys, and dealt with them in my own way. A very bad man had been hanged in the town a little while before, and I had heard the matter talked of a great deal. So I got a string, tied it around the doll’s neck, and proceeded to hang it to the limb of a tree in our yard. The rest of the toys I threw into a little stream near our house. When all was done, I returned to the house and marched into the drawing-room, where a good many people had gathered to greet my mother and her new husband. Everybody grew silent when I entered the room. They had all heard of the scene I had made at the railroad station, and they now held their breath to wait for what I might say or do.