he was going to have it,
that certainly _I_ didn't want to be the one to tell her. So I didn't
ask Mother what a divorce was.

I didn't even think of asking Father, of course. I never ask Father
questions. Nurse says I did ask him once why he didn't love me like
other papas loved their little girls. But I was very little then, and
I don't remember it at all. But Nurse said Father didn't like it very
well, and maybe I _did_ remember that part, without really knowing it.
Anyhow, I never think of asking Father questions.

I asked the doctor first. I thought maybe 't was some kind of a
disease, and if he knew it was coming, he could give them some sort
of a medicine to keep it away--like being vaccinated so's not to have
smallpox, you know. And I told him so.

He gave a funny little laugh, that somehow didn't sound like a laugh
at all. Then he grew very, very sober, and said:

"I'm sorry, little girl, but I'm afraid I haven't got any medicine
that will prevent--a divorce. If I did have, there'd be no eating or
drinking or sleeping for me, I'm thinking--I'd be so busy answering my
calls."

"Then it _is_ a disease!" I cried. And I can remember just how
frightened I felt. "But isn't there any doctor anywhere that _can_
stop it?"

He shook his head and gave that queer little laugh again.

"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 ol