Afterward, when she grew bigger and asked questions, one of the neighbours had told her that her mother had lost her mind from a fall in the circus, that they had taken her away to an asylum, and that now she was dead.
"And wherever she is, she ought to go down on her knees and thank Gideon Vetch for the way he's looked after you," said the woman.
"But didn't he look after her too ?" asked the child.
At this the woman laughed shrilly, lifting the soaking clothes with her capable red hands, and then plunging them down into the soapsuds." Well, I reckon that's more than the Lord Almighty would expect of him!" she replied emphatically but ambiguously.
"I wonder why Father never took me to see her.

I'm sure I'd have remembered it." The woman looked at her darkly.

"There are some places that children don't go to." "How long ago did she die ?" Patty waited patiently for an answer; but when at last the neighbour raised her head again from the tub, it appeared that her reticence had extended from her speech to her expression which looked as if it had closed over something.

"You'll have to ask your father that," she returned in a phrase as cryptic as the preceding one.

"I ain't here to tell you things." After this the child set her lips firmly together, and asked no more questions.