Yes, in very truth I had seen all! And when, with a general sense of discomfort, I opened my eyes upon the sunlight again, I found myself attended by two of the seven sons, who cast water on me with lavish hand and pounded me with an affectionate brutality that left marks by which my fainting might be remembered for days after. I looked stupidly at them at first and wondered, and then I saw that great, red, growing stain beneath the wasted, white face, and I broke into such sobs as fairly frightened them. I was crouching on the top step of the porch, with my feet drawn up and my arms and head resting on my knees, and as I glanced downward I saw four bare, brown, boyish feet, and noted how restless they were. With my heart almost bursting with pain, some portion of my brain made a note of the fact that one of the four great toes before me had received a recent cut that must have been given by a hoe. Then the elder one thumped me kindly on the back and said: “Don’t, Carrie, don’t!”--and the other one said, in a husky voice: “Why, didn’t yo’ never know at all that sister Linda was a-goin’ to die?”
I gave an agonized cry at the words, and the elder boy exclaimed: “What did yer want to say that for? For two cents I’d give yer a good lickin’!”--while he, of the toe, said: “No, yer won’t give me a lickin’ for two cents, nor for one cent, neither!”
And then they grabbed at each other over my head, but a grave voice said: “Boys, I never was so shamed by you before!”
It was Alfred, the eldest of the seven, and a “grown-up” himself. He paid no attention to their explanations--their recriminations; he simply stooped, and, lifting my shaking body in his arms, carried me into the house. As he was going up the narrow stairs a splash came on my cheek that was no tear of mine. A thrill went through me from head to foot--I lifted my swollen lids to look at him. His face wore that gray tint paleness brings to dark people, and in his always sad eyes I saw slow tears gathering. I buried my own face in his bosom, and laying my shaking, little hand across his eyes, I sobbed: “Don’t, oh, please don’t! She couldn’t bear it if she knew!”
He took me to my mother’s room and, placing me high against the pillows, deftly tied a wet handkerchief about my hot brows, and then he stood looking down at me for a moment before he said, with a quivering voice: “You know now, don’t you, Carrie?”