"Hold still," Prudence warned again. Samantha tried to follow her advice, but curiosity got the better of her. She pulled her arms away, the pain forgotten, and hurried over to the hearth. She pulled aside the brick to reveal a bundle of papers torn, soiled, and yellowed with age. "What is that?"
"It's part of a book," Samantha said. She unfolded the pages on Prudence's table and heard Prudence gasp.
On the papers were drawings of adult women wearing colorful clothes. Samantha pointed to one where a woman with Samantha's figure and hair color wore a pair of blue trousers and a pink short-sleeved shirt. The woman posed in the picture with her hands defiantly on her hips and her hair thrown back over one shoulder. "Look at that. Could you make me something like that?"
"No, I couldn't. It's wrong. Girls aren't supposed to wear trousers and shirts like that. Those are for boys."
"Why? Because the reverend says so?"
"It's wrong. We shouldn't have these." Prudence snatched the papers away from Samantha and tore them into tiny pieces that she spread among the hearth. Samantha sank to the floor, the pain in her arms returning at this senseless destruction. "Forget you ever saw those. Promise?"
Samantha nodded. She held out her arms for Prudence to work on, craning her neck so she could see the fragments of the pages in the hearth. She wouldn't forget what she saw. Not ever.