“Mens sana in corpore sano,” she said.
She had wrenched her left knee, too, it appeared, and so Hannah let us out. She went into the outside corridor with us and closed the door behind her.
“What did she say about her right arm and her left leg?” she inquired.
When we told her she merely sniffed.
“I’ll bet she said she was sick of her aunt’s picture and that clock, too,” she said. “Well, she’s lying, that’s all.”
“Hannah!”
“I call it that. She’s smashed them, and she’s smashed her Grandfather Benton and the cut-glass salad bowl, and a window. And the folks below are talking something awful.”
“Hannah! What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah wailed, and burst into tears. “The things she says when she’s locked me out! And the noise! You’d think she was killing a rat with the poker. There’s welts an inch deep in the furniture, and part of the cornice is smashed. Neuritis! She’s lamed herself, that’s all.”
“Maybe its a form of physical culture, Hannah,” I suggested. “They jump about in that, you know.”