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Laughing Boy 259

the bad women — they make their living by lying down with men, just any men who will pay them. Some of them were Americans, some had been schoolgirls like me. The preacher used to preach against them sometimes; I thought, he did not need to do that. Something had happened to their faces, their eyes; their mouths were terrible. They were like something in a bad dream. That way I thought.

‘Then by and by I fell in love with a man. He was big and good-looking and he talked pious. He was a cow-puncher; he worked on a ranch near there. Lots of American girls liked him. When he paid attention to me, I was flattered. He was wonderful, I thought. We should be married and have a ranch together; it was almost too good to believe, I thought.

‘I was frightened when he wanted me to lie with him, but he made me feel all right. He knew all about how to make women forget themselves, that man.

'Then I saw I was going to have a child. The next time he came to town, | asked him to marry me quickly. He made promises. Then he didn’t come to town again, so I went to the ranch where he worked. He was angry when he saw me there. He offered me money, but I said I wanted marriage.