GUEST COLUMN – THE LESSON

By Carol J. Rhodes
When the girl’s mother died last year, Hannah had little choice but to take her in, not wishing to let her be raised by her no-account skirt-chasing father who had married a woman from the wrong part of town before the body was even a week in the ground, before he had paid proper respect to the saintly woman who had put up with his wiles because she loved him, who had held her head high and cried only in private while praying for a miracle that he would change, and when he did not, she died, they said from the consumption, but Hannah knew it was from a broken heart, and so now that the girl is old enough for the boys and men at church to take notice of her, it is her duty as a Christian to see that she does not turn out bad and bring disgrace to the family again.
She stood in the doorway of the darkened bedroom with the same stance she always took ·when she lectured the girl about scruples and principles of moral conduct, warning her again about how she must take extreme care never to do anything so insufferable that she would be unable to face her friends, friends who would not understand the things that-can and do
happen, even to nice girls, should they fall for a man’s smooth talk or let down their defenses even for a moment, for such actions would surely seal their fate in life, then continued by recounting the story of a distant cousin whose family had never forgiven her, or let her forget, how she had shamed their name, even after she had fallen ill with no hope of recovery, and
how later at the funeral the whispers had started all over again when the boy came in, knelt by the plain wooden box and cried, and how easy it would be, if she was not careful, for her to turn out the same way, stone cold dead in a grave covered over with moss, with not even a marker to show she had ever existed. Satisfied the girl had once more been sufficiently
admonished, Hannah smiled and smoothed her dress as she joined her own family in the parlor to await the girl’s nightly after dinner entertainment of playing tunes on the harpsichord.
The girl, still kneeling by the bed, had not made asound of protestation as she listened once again to the denouncement of her father and to the warnings which alluded to the terrible things boys and men do to women and young innocent girls, things she did not yet understand because her questions were always left unanswered, and knowing now that she would never be able to flee the stern rule of this house or be free of her father’s ghost, waited until the glow from the oil lamp disappeared down the hallway, then slipped the poison pill under her tongue, lay down on the bed, and waited for her release.