You ought
to see the way frogs get born!"
"In my day children weren't taught such stuff. I'm surprised, Ben, it's
allowed."
Across the biology of life, as if to shut out the loathsome facts of an
abattoir, a curtain of dreadful portent was drawn before Lilly's
clear eyes.
"When baby came," was Mrs. Becker's insinuation for the naked and
impolite fact of birth.
In a vague, inchoate sort of way, Lilly at sixteen was visualizing
nature procreant as an abominable woman creature standing shank deep in
spongy swampland and from behind that portentous curtain moaning in the
agonized key of Mrs. Kemble.
About this time Mrs. Kemble's third child was within a few weeks of
birth.
"Mamma, what makes Mrs. Kemble look so funny!"
"Hush, Lilly. Don't you ever let me hear you talk like that again.
Little girls shouldn't ask such questions."
One night shortly after, a cry that tore like a gash through the
sleeping boarding house roused Lilly to a sitting posture on her little
cot drawn across the baseboard of her parents' bed.
"Mamma! Papa! What was that?"
There were immediate voices and running up and down stairs and more
cries that beat the air and Mrs.
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