Read Online The First Book of the Pure by Don Dewey - Free Book Online Page A

control.
    Mary (Ruby) had a strange weakness for the
problems and sorrows of young girls. Her own daughters had never
received their due from their fathers, and she’d never been able to
make the difference in their young lives. Now she watched this
child be a child, expending energy just to use it up, and she
smiled. She also thought she’d do this child a favor and teach her
that the ways of this community, this small culture, were not the
only ones she needed to learn. She wanted to somehow introduce this
child to the wider world.
    When she ran by Mary, she tripped and fell on
her face. Mary pulled her foot back out of the narrow wooden
planked aisle, and with a skillful toss of her left hand, unseen by
anyone, she flipped a basket of roots, very smelly roots with earth
still on them, directly onto Sarah’s face. The young girl lay
there, smelled the acrid roots, and jumped up screaming. Mary
caught her arm in a steel grip and said quietly, “Hush. You’re in
trouble already. Do you want it to be worse? Here comes your
mother.”
    Sarah was brushing roots and dirt off of
herself, shaking her long dress, and looking fearfully at her
approaching mother. “I didn’t do anything Mother.” She spoke so
quickly she stumbled over the words.
    Alice, her mother, very embarrassed by her
daughter’s actions, spoke first to Mary. “I am so sorry,
Ma’am. She’s just a child, and I hope she didn’t bump you or
frighten you.” Turning her attention to Sarah, she said in a stern
voice, “Young lady, out! You cannot be acting like this in
here.”
    Mary stepped in very smoothly. “Your name,
child?”
    Sarah looked down, but knew she had to answer
this adult she’d blundered into. “Sarah.” Her voice was tiny and
fear trembled in it like a palsy.
    “Do you have something to say to me?”
    “I’m so sorry, Ma’am.” It tore at Mary’s
heart that the child spoke in that fearful, trembly voice.
    “For what?” Mary demanded.
    “For, uh, for…” Sarah stumbled because she
didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think she’d hit this lady, and
she certainly didn’t think she’d knocked over the roots. She didn’t
know what she thought.
    “For what, indeed!” continued Mary. In her
mind’s eye, long ago in Crete, she saw a small child named Ruby run
from the harsh punishment inflicted by a brute of a man, after she
had snagged a piece of fruit, sure he hadn’t seen her. She had
deserved some punishment, she supposed, but not what she received.
And this child had done nothing but be a child. “Did you strike
me?” She waited for an answer.
    “No ma’am.” Her voice was so timid as to be
hard to hear.
    “Did you hit the roots and tip them?” she
pressed.
    “No ma’am,” little Sarah said again.
    “Then for what are you sorry, child?” Mary
asked gently.
    Alice stepped in then. She wanted to get her
overly active child out of there as soon as she possibly could.
“Ma’am, she said she was sorry. Please, let us leave.”
    Mary held her ground. “No. This child was
frightened enough to be sorry for something she hadn’t even done.
This town has that effect on people. She shouldn’t be sorry for
doing nothing wrong!”
    The man running the store came up to them and
added his tupence. “She ought not to be running in my place. It’s
not right for a child to be underfoot like that. She should be sorry.”
    “Nonsense!” Mary made the pronouncement with
enough tart in it to redden the man’s face. “Don’t be stupid, sir.
She was being a child. Children run. It’s as simple as that. I
tossed the roots. She needed to learn to not fear when she’s in the
right.”
    “Well then, you owe for the...”
    “Of course. Put it on my bill, and I’ll pay
you when I come in next. Mind you, I know their worth; charge me no
more.”
    Alice was sighing with relief as she trundled
Sarah out of the store.
    Outside the women stopped to talk. “Thank you
for clearing Sarah. She is rambunctious, but a