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"It was so dark, Cathy, and the room felt so big

and scary. You know I don't like night and darkness

with no lamp burning, with nobody there but me. I

even wanted Sissy back, she seemed better than

nobody. Something in the shadows moved and I was terrified, and though we're not supposed to I turned on a lamp. I wanted to take all my little dolls to bed with me so I'd have company. I was gonna be so careful not

to toss and turn and break off their heads.

"I always put Mr. and Mrs. Parkins left and

right with baby Clara in the middle in the bottom

drawer of my dresser. I picked up the cotton wadding

that was in the middle first and felt something hard.

But when I looked, Cathy, when I looked there was no

baby, only a little stick! I unwrapped Mr. and Mrs.

Parkins, and they were only sticks too--bigger ones!

It hurt so bad not to find them I began to cry. All my

little dolls gone, all turned to wood, so I knew God

was never gonna let me grow tall when he would

make my pretty dolls into only sticks.

"Something funny happened to me then, like I

turned into wood too. I felt stiff and couldn't see too

good. I went and crouched in a corner and waited for

something bad to happen. The grandmother said

something terrible would happen if I broke a doll,

didn't she?" Not another word would she say, but I

learned from others what happened after that. In the dark, long after midnight, the twelve little

rich girls Miss Dewhurst had denied liberty all stole

furtively into Carrie's room. It was Lacy St. John who had the integrity to tell me, but only when Miss

Dewhurst was out of hearing.

Twe

lve girls, all wearing long white cotton

nightgowns, the official sleeping garments of the