I'd heard
it at school. (I know now what it was that made those girls act so
queer and horrid.) There was a girl--I never liked her, and I suspect
she didn't like me, either. Well, she found out Mother had a divorce.
(You see, _I_ hadn't told it. I remembered how those girls out West
bragged.) And she told a lot of the others. But it didn't work at all
as it had in the West. None of the girls in this school here had a
divorce in their families; and, if you'll believe it, they acted--some
of them--as if it was a _disgrace_, even after I told them good and
plain that ours was a perfectly respectable and genteel divorce.
Nothing I could say made a mite of difference, with some of the
girls, and then is when I first heard that perfectly horrid word,
"grass-widow." So I knew what Peter meant, though I was furious at him
for using it. And I let him see it good and plain.
Of course I changed schools. I knew Mother'd want me to, when she
knew, and so I told her right away. I thought she'd be superb and
haughty and disdainful sure this time. But she wasn't. First she grew
so white I thought she was going to faint away. Then she began to cry,
and kiss and hug me. And that night I heard her talking to Aunt Hattie
and saying, "To think that that poor innocent child has to suffer,
too!" and some more which I couldn't hear, because her voice was all
choked up and shaky.
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