She took him sharply to task for it, and told him he
ought not to tolerate it; but he retorted that she ought to speak to the
people about it, and not to him, for he could not stand up against it.
But that was not to be done--in fact, Damie was secretly not
particularly annoyed by being teased everywhere he went. Sometimes,
indeed, it hurt him to have everybody laugh at him, and to have boys
much younger than himself take liberties with him, but it annoyed him a
great deal more to have people take no notice of him at all, and he
would then try to make a fool of himself and expose himself to insult.
Barefoot, on the other hand, was certainly in some danger of developing
into the hermit Marianne had always professed to recognize in her. She
had once attached herself to one single companion, the daughter of Coaly
Mathew; but this girl had been away for years, working in a factory in
Alsace, and nothing was ever heard of her now. Barefoot lived so
entirely by herself that she was not reckoned at all among the young
people of the village; she was friendly and sociable with those of her
own age, but her only real playmate was Black Marianne. And just because
Barefoot lived so much by herself, she had no influence upon the
behavior of Damie, who, however much he might be teased and tormented,
always had to have the company of others, and could never be alone like
his sister.
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