Growing Up: A Story of the Girlhood of Judith Mackenzie

by Mrs. Nathaniel Conklin

What would Aunt Rody say to her?

What would Aunt Rody do to her?

Afraid to go away and leave the bread that would tell its own story, afraid to stay with it, for Aunt Rody’s sunbonnet and heavy step might appear at any moment, she went to the sink to pump water over her hands and to decide what to do next.

Joe was on his way to the barn and stables to gather eggs; Aunt Rody had made a law that she should not go into any of the outbuildings without permission,—without her permission; in summer time there were “so many machines and things around, and children had a way of stepping into the jaws of death.” She missed hunting the eggs.

The gate swung to, there was a step on the flagged path; with her hands dripping, she flew up the kitchen stairs; on the landing she waited, breathless, to hear what Aunt Rody would say.

The step was in the kitchen, there was a pause,—Aunt Rody must be uncovering the bread; a smothered exclamation, then a quick, angry voice: “That Joe! He’s always doing something underhanded. He’s too fond of eating; I will not say one word, but he shall not have any of this graham bread, or the next, if I can help it. When he asks for it I’ll tell him before all the table-full that he knows why.”

The awful sentence was delivered in an awful voice; tearful and trembling, the culprit up the stairway heard every word; it was her dreadful secret, her guilty secret; she no more dared to rush down the stairs and confess the theft than she dared—she could not think of any comparison.

She fled through the large, unfurnished chamber, known as the store-room, to her own room, and there, bolting the door, threw herself upon the bed and wept as she had never wept before; because she had never been so wicked and frightened before. Joe would be punished for her sin; she would not dare confess if Aunt Rody starved him to death.

“Judith, Judith, come out on the piazza,” called Aunt Affy.

She peeped in the glass: her eyes were red, and her hair was tumbled; the latter was nothing new, she could sit in the hammock with her eyes away from Aunt Affy.