Carrie Halston was playing in the garden when she saw something she shouldn’t have, and that was what cost her her life.
It was a beautiful day in August. The sun was high and hot—too hot for the frilly dress Carrie’s mother had insisted she wear. Through the windows of the house she could hear the strains of “Beautiful Dreamer” drifting from the gramophone her father had brought home the week before.
She liked the song. It was sad, it seemed to her, but very pretty.
She picked a handful of daisies from the formal planting and went to look for her mother, wondering when her big sister would be finished making the lemonade.
The fish pond attracted her attention, and she stopped to stare into its murky waters. She loved the great shimmering fantail goldfish, their bodies as large as her hand, their tails like bridal veils trailing out behind them. After laying the daisies on the bench, she went to get the little jar she had hidden out here the week before.
It was so much fun to watch the fish eat.
She sprinkled some food on the water and pursed her lips with delight as the golden figures floated to the surface, graceful and ghostlike. Kneeling at the edge of the pond, Carrie reached for one, knowing she could never catch it, but unable to resist trying anyway.
Suddenly she slipped, and her whole arm plunged into the pond. She pulled it back as if she had been burned. Now she had done it. Her mother would be furious because she had spoiled her pretty dress.
A lump of panic forming in her throat, she replaced the cover on the jar and returned it to its hiding place.
What should she do?
She gathered her daisies and looked around frantically.
Near the summerhouse was a hiding place, a clump of bushes where she would be safely out of sight until her sleeve had dried. Then maybe she could brush away the incriminating green.
Carried hated it when her mother was angry with her. Mommy was so lovely, so pale and pretty. But when she was angry, her eyes grew wide and frightening, and her breath began to come fast. Sometimes she would even faint. That was what Carrie hated most of all; she felt guilty whenever it happened.
Parting the branches of her secret place, Carrie stepped into the cool shade. She had sneaked an old pillowcase out here early that summer; now she spread it on the ground so she could sit without getting her dress any dirtier than it already was.
She laid the daisies on her lap and began to wait.
A ripple of laughter from the summerhouse made her look up. It was her mothers’ voice. She sounded happy. Maybe she was in a good mood!
Carrie looked at the daisies. They were starting to wilt. What if they were ruined before she could give them to her mother?
She listened carefully. She heard a man’s voice, low and soft. Then her mother’s sweet laugh again.
Maybe Mommy wouldn’t be angry after all. Maybe she would like the daisies so much she wouldn’t say anything at all about the dirty sleeve.
Hope rising in her heart, Carrie Halston parted the bushes and stepped into the sunlight. She let out a little gasp.
“Carrie!” cried her mother, her voice filled with dismay.
Then the other one began to chase her.
Still clutching the daisies, the little girl ran back along the path to the fish pond.
“Mommy!” she cried. “Mommy, help me!”
But there was no answer. It would be more than fifty years before Carrie Halston’s mother answered her.