"They tell me Naomi Clark is real sick," said Janet. "She has been
ailing all winter, and now she's fast to her bed. Mrs. Murphy says
she believes the woman is dying, but nobody dares tell her so.
She won't give in she's sick, nor take medicine. And there's nobody
to wait on her except that simple creature, Maggie Peterson."
"I wonder if I ought to go and see her," said Mr. Leonard uneasily.
"What use would it be to bother yourself? You know she wouldn't
see you--she'd shut the door in your face like she did before.
She's an awful wicked woman--but it's kind of terrible to think
of her lying there sick, with no responsible person to tend her."
"Naomi Clark is a bad woman and she lived a life of shame,
but I like her, for all that," remarked Felix, in the grave,
meditative tone in which he occasionally said rather startling things.
Mr. Leonard looked somewhat reproachfully at Janet Andrews,
as if to ask her why Felix should have attained to this dubious
knowledge of good and evil under her care; and Janet shot a dour
look back which, being interpreted, meant that if Felix went
to the district school she could not and would not be held
responsible if he learned more there than arithmetic and Latin.
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