"I'm afraid not," he sighed. "As for it's being a disease--there are
people that call it a disease, and there are others who call it a
cure; and there are still others who say it's a remedy worse than the
disease it tries to cure. But, there, you baby! What am I saying?
Come, come, my dear, just forget it. It's nothing you should bother
your little head over now. Wait till you're older."

Till I'm older, indeed! How I hate to have folks talk to me like that!
And they do--they do it all the time. As if I was a child now, when
I'm almost standing there where the brook and river meet!

But that was just the kind of talk I got, everywhere, nearly every
time I asked any one what a divorce was. Some laughed, and some
sighed. Some looked real worried 'cause I'd asked it, and one got mad.
(That was the dressmaker. I found out afterward that she'd _had_ a
divorce already, so probably she thought I asked the question on
purpose to plague her.) But nobody would answer me--really answer me
sensibly, so I'd know what it meant; and 'most everybody said, "Run
away, child," or "You shouldn't talk of such things," or, "Wait, my
dear, till you're older"; and all that.

Oh, how I hate such talk when I really want to know something! How
do they expect us to get our education if they won't answer our
questions?

I don't know which made me angriest--I mean angrier. (I'm speaking of
two things, so I must, I suppose. I hate grammar!) To have them talk
like that--not answer me, you know--or have them do as Mr. Jones, the
storekeeper, did, and the men there with him.