The Bad Seed Read Free

and quite comprehensible pattern if others could find the clues or glimpse the design. She came to the conclusion that her admiration of the colored print was the genesis of her admiration for the child. There was no doubt about it!… None at all!… Then she remembered that her brother Emory, with whom she lived, loved the little girl quite as much as she did. Now, Emory’s affection was
certainly
not the associative end result of an old lithograph, for he was nine years younger than herself, and there was no reason whatever to assume that he’d even
seen
the old skating print. In fact, her grandmother had died, and her effects had been scattered, two years before Emory was born.… So it was very doubtful that— In other words, there was no reason to suppose— She waited, wondering if her system of associative wisdom were as effective as she had believed, her brows puckered in perturbation.
    She had said these things, and had thought these thoughts the morning before, while returning leisurely with Mrs. Penmark and her daughter from the closing exercises of the Fern School. There had been the customary recitations with the customarylapses of memory and the usual flow of tears; the fumbling application of parental handkerchiefs; the traditional caresses and words of comfort. Miss Burgess Fern (the middle one) had made her expected speech on honor and the need for fair play; there was the harp solo by Miss Fern herself, who had once studied in Rome.
    When these preliminaries were done with and the chorus of children had sung the school song, the prizes for the different excellencies displayed were awarded. At the very end, the most important prize of all, in the minds of the pupils, was given: the gold medal awarded annually to the child who showed the greatest improvement in penmanship during the school year. (“The hallmark of the lady or gentleman is the quality of his penmanship,” Miss Octavia Fern so often said. “The clarity, elegance, and refinement of one’s penmanship establishes the true character and background of the individual when all other tests are inconclusive.”)
    Rhoda had wanted the penmanship medal from the first, and from the first she had thought she would win it. She had practiced faithfully, the tip of her tongue protruding between her teeth, the pen clutched in her determined hand; but as it happened, the beautiful medal had gone not to herself but to a thin, timid little boy named Claude Daigle, who was in her class and who was her age.
    When the exercises were over, and the pupils and their parents were strolling under the live oaks of the Fern lawn, Miss Claudia came up, rested her hand on Rhoda’s shoulder, and said, “You mustn’t feel badly about not winning the medal, although I know how important these things are at your age. It was a very close race this year.” Then, turning to Mrs. Breedlove, she added, “Rhoda worked so hard; she labored so diligently to improve her penmanship. We all knew how badly she wanted the medal, and I, for one, was sure she’d win it. But our judges, who areentirely impartial, who don’t even know the identity of the children whose work they inspect, decided that the little Daigle boy, while not writing the clear neat hand that Rhoda used, did show the greatest
improvement
for the term, and improvement is what the medal is given for, after all.”
    Remembering these things of the day before, knowing how disappointed the child was, the reason for her quietness now, Christine said gaily, “You must have a perfectly wonderful day! When you’re as old as I am, and perhaps have a little girl of your own who goes on school picnics, you can look back on today and remember it with pleasure.”
    Rhoda sipped her orange juice, turning her mother’s words over in her mind; then, with no emotion in her voice, as though repeating a thing which did not really concern her, she said, “I don’t see why Claude Daigle got the medal. It was mine. Everybody