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girl. It is enough. To be a good girl and do as Mother says."
    She took the frog and held it tightly. She did not seem to notice that Robert's mouth was moist, that his eyes stared directly through her.
    She did not seem to hear the birds and the puppies whispering to Robert, or see them clustering about him.
    She held the frog in one hand, and with the other pulled a large knife from the knife-holder. It was rusted and without luster, but its edge was keen enough, and its point sharp.
    "You must think about this, child. About how you forced your mother into punishing you." She smiled. "Tell me this: have you named your little friend?"
    "Yes. His name is Drake."
    "Drake! How very appropriate!"
    Miss Gentilbelle did not look at her son. She put the frog on the table and turned it over on its back. The creature thrashed violently.
    Then she put the point of the knife on the frog's belly, paused, waited, and pushed inwards. The frog twitched as she held it and drew the blade slowly across, slowly, deep inside the animal.
    In a while, when it had quieted, she dropped the frog into a box of kindling.
    She did not see Robert pick up the knife and hold it in his hand.
    Robert had stopped thinking. Snowy flecks of saliva dotted his face, and his eyes had no life to them. He listened to his friends. The puppies, crawling about his feet, yipping painfully. The birds, dropping their bloody wings, flying crazily about his head, screaming, calling. And now the frogs, hopping, croaking.
    He did not think. He listened.
    "Yes . . . . . . yes."
    Miss Gentilbelle turned quickly, and her laughter died as she did so. She threw her hands out and cried--but the knife was already sliding through her pale dress, and through her pale flesh.
    The birds screeched and the puppies howled and the frogs croaked. Yes, yes, yes, yes!
    And the knife came out and went in again, it came out and went in again.
    Then Robert slipped on the wet floor and fell. He rolled over and over, crying softly, and laughing, and making other sounds.
    Miss Gentilbelle said nothing. Her thin white fingers were curled about the handle of the butcher knife, but she no longer tried to pull it from her stomach.
    Presently her wracked breathing stopped.
    Robert rolled into a corner, and drew his legs and arms about him, tight.
    He held the dead frog to his face and whispered to it . . .
    The large red-faced man walked heavily through the cypressed land. He skillfully avoided bushes and pits and came, finally, to the clearing that was the entrance to the great house.
    He walked to the wrought-iron gate that joined to the high brick wall that was topped with broken glass and curved spikes.
    He opened the gate, crossed the yard, and went up the decaying, splintered steps. He applied a key to the old oak door.
    "Minnie!" he called. "Got a little news for you! Hey, Minnie!"
    The silent stairs answered him.
    He went into the living room, upstairs to Robert's room.
    "Minnie!"
    He walked back to the hallway. An uncertain grin covered his face. "They're not going to let you keep him! How's that? How do you like it?"
    The warm bayou wind sighed through the shutters.
    The man made fists with his fingers, paused, walked down the hall, and opened the kitchen door.
    The sickly odor went to his nostrils first. The words "Jesus God' formed on his lips, but he made no sound.
    He stood very still, for a long time.
    The blood on Miss Gentilbelle's face had dried, but on her hands and where it had gathered on the floor, it was still moist.
    Her fingers were stiff around the knife.
    The man's eyes traveled to the far corner. Robert was huddled there, chanting softly--flat, dead, singsong words.
    ". . . wicked . . . must be punished . . . wicked girl . . ."
    Robert threw his head back and smiled up at the ceiling.
    The man walked to the corner and lifted Robert to his chest and held him tightly, crushingly.
    "Bobbie," he said. "Bobbie. Bobbie. Bobbie."
    The warm night wind turned cold.
    It sang through the