Death Sentence Read Online Free PDF

September, but it sometimes was November before Velma and her brother got to classes.
    Murphy also tried to make extra money by growing corn, cucumbers, butter beans and field peas, which he sold to grocery stores in Fayetteville. But it was the children who got the extra work of weeding, picking and grading.
    Velma was the only girl in the family for more than nine years—she would be grown before Arlene was old enough to take on chores—and as she grew older, her household responsibilities grew with her. She had to tend the younger children, help with the housecleaning, the washing, ironing and mending. She had to milk the cow and churn the butter, assist with the cooking and wash the dishes.
    Lillie suffered incapacitating headaches that sometimes put her to bed for days, leaving all the household responsibilities to Velma, keeping her out of school.
    While Velma begrudged her chores, she performed ably and with minimal protest—to do otherwise would provoke her father. But from an early age, she was convinced that the only reason her parents wanted her was to work. “I felt like I was just a slave,” she would say years later.
    Despite her unhappiness, Velma still had joyful times.
    Murphy loved baseball and, on warm Sunday afternoons, he sometimes organized baseball games in a nearby field. At such times he seemed like another person to Velma, fun instead of fearsome. The games often went on until dark. Velma played shortstop, the only girl on the field, and she loved it.
    On some hot summer Sundays, Murphy would take the children on outings to the nearby mill pond, where he had taught all of them to swim at early ages by tossing them into the deep water and letting them make for shore on their own.
    On other Sundays, Velma found refuge at the home of an aunt and uncle, her father’s eldest brother, Alex, and his wife, Betsy, who lived a few miles away, across the river in Sampson County. Aunt Betsy was a woman of such good cheer that Velma wanted to grow up to be just like her. She was always teasing and telling stories, and she disdained distress and worry—“All it’ll get you is a bad headache,” she’d say, and Velma need only look at her mother to see that. Velma could not help but laugh around Aunt Betsy and Uncle Alex, and she always dreaded having to return to her own house, where the atmosphere was so different.
    By the time Velma was ten, her father was calling her “Sugar” and “Honey.” Now and then he would take her into his lap, hug her, even tease her good-naturedly. At those moments Velma realized how deeply she craved his affection. She loved the feelings of closeness, warmth and security it stirred in her.
    About this time her father gave her the happiest moment of her childhood. She went with him to Fayetteville one Saturday. While he was off on business, she browsed along the sidewalk, looking in store windows. At a department store, she spotted a mannequin wearing the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen. The fabric was adorned with pink flowers. A wide ruffle hid the hem. She couldn’t allow herself even to dream of owning anything so gorgeous. Still, she wanted her father to see it, and when he returned, she dragged him to the window. To her amazement, he marched into the store, checked the price, took out his wallet, and counted the money for it.
    She would never forget the thrill of anticipation as she took the dress to show her mother. But like so much that she allowed herself to look forward to in life, it was a letdown. “That ruffle is going to be awfully hard to iron,” was all her mother had to say.
    But Velma refused to allow anything to stifle her joy. The pride and the power she got from wearing that dress was the greatest she’d ever known, and she would treasure the memory by making pink her favorite color.
    Murphy was only thirty when World War II started. Most of the younger men around the countryside, and many of Murphy’s age and older, went off to military