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Updated: May 21, 2025
But it was a new accident to Pupasse. And such a long list! The commotion inside that retreat! Pupasse's nasal whine, carrying her lament without any mystery to the outside garden. Such searching of pockets, rummaging of corners, microscopic examination of the floor! Such crimination and recrimination, protestation, asseveration, assurances, backed by divine and saintly invocations!
To Pupasse herself would be meted out that "peine forte et dure," that acme of humiliation and disgrace, so intensely horrible that many a little girl in that room solemnly averred and believed she would kill herself before submitting to it. Pupasse's voluminous calico skirt would be gathered up by the hem and tied up over her head! Oh, the horrible monstrosity on the stool in the corner then!
"Oh, Mon Dieu! To have to confess all but all your sins! As for me, it would kill me, sure!" And the frightful recoils of their consciences would make all instantly blanch and cross themselves. "And look at Pupasse's sins! Oh, but they are long! Ma chère, but look! But look, I ask you, at them!"
But even after recreation, with that day's lessons safely out, punished and expiated, Pupasse's doom seemed scarcely lightened; there was still a whole criminal code of conduct to infract. The only difference was that instead of books, slates, or copy-books, leathern medals, bearing various legends and mottos, were hung around her neck a travestied decoration worse than the books for humiliation.
She was only four feet and a half high, and had to stand on tiptoe to pluck the six-foot Pupasse's dress to gain her attention. And they did help her generously. A new sheet of fool's-cap was procured, and torn in two, lengthwise, and pinned in a long strip.
By this time the fresh new fool's cap made from yesterday's "Bee" would have been pinned on her head. "Quelle injustice! Quelle injustice!" This last apostrophe in a high, whining nasal voice, always procured Pupasse's elevation on the tall three-legged stool in the corner.
Exhibition after exhibition, the same green sash and green ribbons appeared on Pupasse's white muslin, the white muslin getting longer and longer every year, trying to keep up with her phenomenal growth; and always, from all over the room, buzzed the audience's suppressed merriment at Pupasse's appearance in the ranks of the little ones of nine and ten.
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