“Are professors all men?” I wanted to know. Mother said they were men, the ones that lived at that house.
“Because I don’t like women,” I added.
My sister retired from the room. She was a very proper young lady and she didn’t approve of me at all. That noon I met the boarders. They were introduced to me, and then they began firing questions at me from all sides.
I thought they were nice, friendly men who were interested in the sea, until they took sides against me.
“Do you mean to tell us that you saw a native child actually being born?” came the horrified voice of the professor of economics.
“Sure I saw it. You didn’t think she stopped having her baby just because I was there, did you?” I retorted. Those professors thought I was lying. What did they know about the sea, anyway? Then, contradicting another statement I had happened to make, came the retort:
“In our civilized world today there is no such thing as slave trading.” The bewhiskered professor across from me brought his hand down on the table with a smack as he said it. He was trying to show me up and it got under my collar.
“The hell there ain’t,” I cried back at him just as hard and so much louder that he drew back in his shell.
“Sssh! Joan!” It was Mother’s voice from the head of the table. I guess she thought I would drive away her boarders.
“I won’t sssh!” I cried just as loud as ever. “He’s trying to make me out a liar. Ask Father, he’ll tell you.”