Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/122

112 And when I held her hand I felt as if she wasn't sorry about what had happened.

"But they were black days for me after my mother was buried—what with the inquest and everything. I was scared—scared like any guilty boy who's afraid he's going to be caught and locked up. I don't believe I've much what you call 'front.' I was scared to death I'd be found out. I swore readily enough that the shooting was accidental on my stepfather's part. It was, of course, and he got off scot-free, as I suppose he had a right. But he wouldn't let up nagging me about how his rifle got loaded. He flogged and flogged me one night, to make me say I'd been fooling with it, but I wouldn't give in. No, sir. I preferred to lie, and be whipped to death, than imprisoned for life for murder. 'Twasn't long before my stepfather caught on to how it frightened me to be accused of having loaded that gun (though it never crossed his mind what my motive was, I guess)—and he used to threaten he'd tell the sheriff who was really responsible for my mother's death, if I didn't do this or that thing to please him.

"He wanted to make a drudge out of me, miss. He wanted me to cook, and clean, and wash for him, after my mother died, and do the chores and tend the cow, and work the garden; and when September came, and I told him, one time, my school would begin in a week, he laughed and sneered, and said there was to be no more of that funny business. He even stole the money my mother had saved for my college education. He'd known about it all the time, it seems, and when I tried to argue with him that it was mine he sent me for the little narrow leather strap. My