“I won’t come back next year!” she screamed.
The headmistress left her bedside, and all day, others who passed her room peeked in warily and scurried down the hallway. She’d tried to discuss her feelings about boarding school with her parents this morning. Mama turned away silently to fold an armful of sun-dried sheets while Daddy fled to the porch to smoke his pipe. Their farm was freedom from this cruel monotony of rules and institutionalized confinement. Now, a middle-aged woman, uninvited, appears.
She kisses her cheek, whispers, “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to, Mom.”
The headmistress left her bedside, and all day, others who passed her room peeked in warily and scurried down the hallway. She’d tried to discuss her feelings about boarding school with her parents this morning. Mama turned away silently to fold an armful of sun-dried sheets while Daddy fled to the porch to smoke his pipe. Their farm was freedom from this cruel monotony of rules and institutionalized confinement. Now, a middle-aged woman, uninvited, appears.
She kisses her cheek, whispers, “You don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to, Mom.”
