Nellie Clark
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was only eight years old;And before I grew up and knew what it meantI had no words for it, exceptThat I was frightened and told myMother; And that my Father got a pistolAnd would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.Nevertheless the story clung to me.But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,Was a newcomer and never heard it’Till two years after we were married.Then he considered himself cheated,And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.Well, he deserted me, and I diedThe following winter.
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