A
VIEW OF THE WOODS
493
had ever been carried before. For the first five minutes he did not
think but only sped forward as
if
he were being driven inside his
own fury. Gradually the power of thought returned to him. Mary
Fortune, rolled into a ball in the corner of the seat, was snuffling
and heaving.
He had never seen a child behave in such a way in his life.
Neither his own children nor anyone else's had ever displayed such
temper in his presence, and he had never for an instant imagined
that the child he had trained himself, the child who had been his
constant companion for nine years, would embarrass him like this.
The child he had never lifted a hand to!
Then he saw, with the sudden vision that sometimes comes with
delayed recognition, that that had been his mistake.
She respected Pitts because, even with no just cause, he beat
her; and if he-with his just cause-did not beat her now, he would
have nobody to blame but himself if she turned out a hellion. He
saw that the time had come, that he could no longer avoid whipping
her, and .as he turned off the highway onto the dirt road leading
to home, he told n1mself that when he finished with her, she would
never throw another bottle again.
He raced along the clay road until he came to the line where
his own property began and then he turned off onto a side path,
just wide enough for the automobile and bounced for a half a mile
through the woods. He stopped the car .at the exact spot where he
had seen Pitts take his belt to her. It was a place where the road
widened so that two cars could pass or one could turn around, an
ugly red bald spot surrounded by long thin pines that appeared to
be gathered there to witness anything that would take place in such
a clearing. A few stones protruded from the clay.
"Get out," he said and reached across her and opened the door.
She got out without looking at him or asking what they were
going to do and he got out on his side and came around the front
of the car.
"Now I'm going to whip you!" he said and his voice was extra
loud and hollow and had a vibrating quality that appeared to be
taken up and passed through the tops of the pines. He did not want
to get caught in a downpour while he was whipping her and he
