Explore "Young People's Pride" by Stephen Vincent Benet on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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.