This,
and the knowledge that Ruloff would most assuredly punish her
clumsiness, made her break out in shrill weeping.
Among the cascaded peaches she lay, crying her eyes out. Up the
hill toward her scrambled Ruloff; basket on shoulder; yelling
abuse better fitted for the ears of a balky mule than for those
of a hurt child.
"Get up!" he bawled. "Get up, you worthless little cow! If you've
spoiled any of those peaches or broke my basket, I'll cut the
flesh off your bones."
Sonya redoubled her wailing. For, she recognized a bumpy
substance beneath her as the crushed basket. And these baskets
belonged to Ruloff; not to the Place.
For the accidental breaking of far less worthwhile things, at
home, she and her brothers and sisters had often been thrashed
most unmercifully: Her lamentations soared to high heaven. And
her father's running feet sounded like the tramp of Doom.
There is perhaps no other terror so awful as that of an ill
treated child at the approach of punishment. A man or woman,
menaced by danger from law or from private foe, can either fight
it out or run away from it.
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