Her face softened into marvelous tenderness as she looked at Salome.
"She's nothing but a child herself in spite of her age,"
she thought pityingly. "A child that's had her whole
life thwarted and spoiled through no fault of her own.
And yet folks say there is a God who is kind and good!
If there is a God, he is a cruel, jealous tyrant, and I hate Him!"
Judith's eyes were bitter and vindictive. She thought she had
many grievances against the great Power that rules the universe,
but the most intense was Salome's helplessness--Salome, who fifteen
years before had been the brightest, happiest of maidens, light of heart
and foot, bubbling over with harmless, sparkling mirth and life.
If Salome could only walk like other women, Judith told herself
that she would not hate the great tyrannical Power.
Lionel Hezekiah was subdued and angelic for four days after that
affair of the henhouse door. Then he broke out in a new place.
One afternoon he came in sobbing, with his golden curls full of burrs.
Judith was not in, but Salome dropped her crochet-work and gazed
at him in dismay.
"Oh, Lionel Hezekiah, what have you gone and done now?"
"I--I just stuck the burrs in 'cause I was playing I was a heathen chief,"
sobbed Lionel Hezekiah.
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