Some faint recollection of a time of revolt in
her own youth perhaps came to her. Tears came into her eyes. To her the
world was a place of terror, where wolf-like men prowled about seeking
women to devour, and she was afraid something dreadful would happen to her
niece. "If you don't want to tell me anything, it's all right," she said
bravely, "but I wish you felt you could." When Clara turned to look at her,
she hastened to explain. "Mr. Woodburn said I wasn't to bother you about it
and I won't," she added quickly. Nervously folding and unfolding her arms,
she turned to stare up the street with the air of a frightened child that
looks into a den of beasts. "O Clara, be a good girl," she said. "I know
you're grown up now, but, O Clara, do be careful! Don't get into trouble."
The Woodburn house in Columbus, like the Butterworth house in the country
south of Bidwell, sat on a hill. The street fell away rather sharply as one
went toward the business portion of the city and the street car line, and
on the morning when her aunt spoke to her and tried with her feeble hands
to tear some stones out of the wall that was being built between them,
Clara hurried along the street under the trees, feeling as though she would
like also to weep. She saw no possibility of explaining to her aunt the new
thoughts she was beginning to have about life and did not want to hurt her
by trying.
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