Read Online Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson - Free Book Online

doesn’t care if I hang around the house, cooking and saying, ‘Yes, sir,’ when he opens his fat mouth. All he wants is no one to think they can be the same as he is, or equal to him, or something. And you watch out—the minute you start getting too big, he’ll be after you, too.”
    â€œI think you ought to go outside for a while,” Natalie said nervously.
    â€œWith
me
,” her mother continued, “it was because I didn’t have anyone. He picks out the one way he can frighten you most, you see, and I didn’t have anyone at all, because my family didn’t understand me any more after I went off with your father, and I used to lie awake wanting my mother and she wouldn’t have me because I was different by then. And he’ll find the way he can frighten you, too, but it won’t be because you don’t have anyone because
your
mother won’t turn you down. She
won’t,
Natalie,” Mrs. Waite said, beggingly, pulling at Natalie’s sleeve, “she won’t, she won’t ever. I know what it’s like Natalie, and I’ll always protect you from them, the bad ones. Don’t you ever worry, little Natalie, your mother will always help you.”
    An agonizing embarrassment kept Natalie from looking away. She looked at her mother and her mother looked at Natalie; it was at this point in her mother’s drunkenness that Natalie always longed to say something sympathetic, and could never find the right, understanding words. Then suddenly Mr. Waite called from the foot of the stairs. “Natalie. Coming down?”
    Mrs. Waite began to cry, and buried her head in the pillow. “Poor little girl,” she said. “No mother.”
    A sort of intoxication possessed Natalie; this could surely not be the intoxication, she thought breathlessly, born of one weak cocktail sipped timidly in the kitchen. It was instead, and she was almost sure of this, the preliminary faint stirrings of something about to happen. The idea once born, she knew it was true; something incredible was going to happen, now, right now, this afternoon, today; this was going to be a day she would remember and look back upon, thinking, That wonderful day . . . the day when
that
happened.
    â€œLet us go over the sequence of events once more,” the detective said tiredly. He had leaned back and unbuttoned his jacket, and Natalie, who saw him more clearly than she saw the people on the lawn, thought that no matter how tired he was, he would not stop until he had from her what he wanted. “Let us start from the very beginning,” the detective said.
    â€œI’ve told you all I know,” Natalie said silently. She could see her father across the lawn, leaning forward and smiling as he talked, his arm carelessly around the waist of the pretty, dark girl. Somebody began to sing; at occasional points in the song many people stopped talking and joined in with the singer, even Mr. Waite and the pretty girl, who laughed when they sang.
    â€œOne is one and all alone and evermore will be so,”
everyone sang.
    â€œ
I’ll sing you two-O
,” the single voice sang, clearly through the noise.
    All around the lawn people were talking, raising their voices to override what someone else was saying, looking secretly at one another, frowning openly at one another, talking, laughing, talking. As though she had just come onto the lawn, Natalie heard suddenly the swell of sound that so surely meant “party.” It rose and moved and eddied, individual voices rising for a second, laughter riding high over the rest, the thin sound of glasses rattling, so fine that it could be heard straight through the heavier noises. It was shocking, loud, and Natalie stepped back, and found herself almost stepping again on the man who had tripped her when she came in earlier with the plate of crackers.
    â€œBound we’re going to kill each other today,” the man