“Say, sissy, did you hurt your foot?”
“No,” I returned, “we’re just playing Lame Duck.”
It was strange now, as I lay awake, crying over the going of my sister, that all the queer little funny incidents of our childhood together came thronging to my mind. I vividly remembered a day when mama was sick and the doctor said she could have chicken broth. Well, there was no one home to kill the chicken, for that was the time papa went to England. Ellen and I volunteered to kill one, for Sung Sung, our old servant, believed it would be unlucky to kill one with the master away—one of his everlasting superstitions. Ellen and I caught the chicken. Then I held it down on the block of wood, while Ellen was to chop the head off. Ellen raised the hatchet, but when it descended she lowered it very gently, and began to cut the head off slowly. Terrified, I let go. Ellen was trembling, and the chicken ran from us with its head bleeding and half off.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est? Qu’est-ce que c’est? De little girl, she is afraid. See me, I am not scared of nutting.”
It was the French grocer boy. He took that unfortunate chicken, and placing its bleeding head between the door and jamb, he slammed the door quickly, and the head was broken. I never did like that boy, now I hated him. Ellen looked very serious and white. When we were plucking the feathers off later, she said:
“Marion, do you know we are as guilty as Emile and if it were a human being, we could be held as accomplices.”
“No, no, Ellen,” I insisted. “I did not kill it. I am not guilty. I wouldn’t be a murderer like Emile for anything in the world.”
“You’re just as bad,” said Ellen severely, “perhaps worse, because to-night you’ll probably eat part of your victim.”
I shuddered at the thought, and I did not eat any chicken that night.
When I was packing my things, preparatory to leaving Mrs. Cohen’s next morning, for I was to return home, now that Ellen was married, Mrs. Cohen came in with a large piece of cake in her hand. She was very sorry for me because I had lost my sister.