Little Women

Mama Matthews had told little Frieda many times. "You got plenty of right to be felt sorry for, Frieda. Now, come on and help me hang them coveralls on the clothesline." But the wont times for little Frieda were in high school. High school in Dudish County, Kansas, started in seventh grade. That usually being the time little girls became little women. And by the time half of the little women hi Dudish County became seniors in high school, they also became other things. They could become pregnant of their own free will; or they could became pregnant of not their own free will. In other words, Dudish County was famous for three things. As a stopover for the Southern Pacific railroad cars that trudged through town, a hundred miles long, in order to drop off mail and deliver water to the three hundred and four Dudish County residents. As the barley basket of the world. As the nation's leading county in illegitimate pregnancies as the Dudish County doctors termed it, and the highest incidence of venereal disease in females as the Dudish County Mental Health Department called it ...»