Read "Young People's Pride" by Stephen Vincent Benet online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Jane Ellen swayed back and forth in the porch hammock, hugging herself with fat arms. All her dolls lay spread out wretchedly on the floor beneath her, she had stripped them of every rag and they had the dejected appearance of victims ready for sacrifice to Baal. "The Choolies are mad! " she sang to herself, "The Choolies are mad!"
It had been a perfectly sensible idea to try and water the flowers on the parlor carpet with her doll's watering pot -- those flowers hadn't had any water for an awful long time. But Mother had punished her in the Third Degree which was by hairbrush and Aunt Elsie had taken the watering-pot away and Rosalind and Dickie had put on such offensively virtuous expressions as soon as they heard her being punished that she was mad at them all. And not ordinarily mad -- not mad just by herself -- the Choolies were divinely incensed as well.