Daisy peeped in around the kitchen door just as 12-year-old Martha was putting supper on the table. ‘Anyone around?’
‘Not until I call them for supper,’ Martha said. ‘Why?’
‘Good. I don’t want them to see me like this.’ Daisy came all the way in.
Martha’s eyes were like two grey saucers that nearly filled the top half of her face. Daisy’s hair was all messed up. Bits of dried grass clung to her hair and her rumpled clothing. ‘What happened to you?’ Martha asked.
‘Just a little experiment,’ Daisy informed her calmly. ‘Have you never wondered, Martha, why we are told that it’s a woman’s duty to lie with her husband and endure it, yet those fallen women we see on the streets, who lie with men for money, look so pleased with themselves?’
‘Daisy!’ Martha gasped. ‘What have you done?’
Daisy giggled. ‘Oh, I didn’t go into town where the sailors hang out. Nothing that adventurous. Lucas was more than willing to go along with me, especially when I threatened to tell that he was the one who dropped the cat in the well.’
‘Cousin Lucas? But that’s … Daisy Ellen Moreton! You’ve committed a double sin – lying with a man before marriage, and with a close blood relative.’
‘Ah, but sin can be such fun, little sister. You really ought to try it sometime.’
‘Aren’t you afraid he might tell?’ Martha shuddered. She would never have the same feeling for Cousin Lucas again. He would always appear wicked and sinful in her eyes from this day on. She would never forgive either of them.
‘If he so much as breathes a word, I’ll say it was rape, and he knows how good I am at lying.’ Daisy shrugged her shoulders. ‘Now give me a minute to clean up before you call the family. And you better not tell anyone either,’ she added.
Martha watched her go upstairs. She didn’t even want to know about Daisy’s awful sins, let alone tell anyone. She would never be able to talk about such things. But she would say an extra long prayer for her wayward sister tonight, and many more nights thereafter.
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