“I thought Carrie was going to faint-or die on the spot. She sucked in all her breath and that little face went a cottage-cheesy color.

“Her mother yelled: 'CAAAARRRIEEEEEE!'

“I jumped up and yelled back: 'Don't you yell at her that way! You ought to be ashamed!' Something stupid like that. I don't remember. Carrie started to go back and then she stopped and then she started again, and just before she crossed over from our lawn to theirs she looked back at me and there was a look… oh, dreadful. I can't say it. Wanting and hating and fearing… and misery. As if life itself had fallen on her like stones, all at the age of three.

“My mother came out on the back stoop and her face just crumpled when she saw the child. And Margaret… oh, she was screaming things about sluts and strumpets and the sins of the fathers being visited even unto the seventh generation. My tongue felt like a little dried-up plant.

“For just a second Carrie stood swaying back and forth between the two yards, and then Margaret White looked up ward and I swear sweet Jesus that woman bayed at the sky. And then she started to… to hurt herself, scourge herself. She was clawing at her neck and cheeks, making red marks and scratches. She tore her dress.

“Carrie screamed out 'Momma!' and ran to her.

“Mrs. White kind of… squatted, like a frog, and her arms swooped wide open. I thought she was going to crush her and I screamed. The woman was grinning. Grinning and drooling right down her chin. Oh, I was sick. Jesus, I was so sick.

“She gathered her up and they went in. I turned off my radio and I could hear her. Some of the words, but not all. You didn't have to hear all the words to know what was going on. Praying and sobbing and screeching. Crazy sounds. And Margaret telling the little girl to get herself into her closet and pray. The little girl crying and screaming that she was sorry, she forgot. Then nothing. And my mother and I just looked at each other. I never saw Mom look so bad, not even when Dad died. She said: 'The child-' and that was all. We went inside.”