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b961133
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All of us are what we have to be and everyone lives the kind of life it's in him to live.
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Betty Smith |
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fa7d293
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Maybe being needed is almost as good as being loved. Maybe better.
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Betty Smith |
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a63512d
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she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy..
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Betty Smith |
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bdd66e0
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Mary was convinced that because of some sin she had unwittingly committed in her life, she was mated with the devil himself. She really believed this because her husband told her so. "I am the devil himself," he told her frequently."
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Betty Smith |
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a10db28
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There are two truths," said Katie finally. "As a mother, I say it would have been a terrible thing for a girl to sleep with a stranger--a man she had known less than forty-eight hours. Horrible things might have happened to you. Your whole life might have been ruined. As your mother, I tell you the truth. "But as a woman..." she hesitated. "I will tell you the truth as a woman. It would have been a very beautiful thing. Because there is on..
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Betty Smith |
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cd90a83
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Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. Let me be hungry...have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere-be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost..
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Betty Smith |
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f234d95
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The child will grow up and find out things for herself. She will know that I lied. She will be disappointed." "That is what is called learning the truth. It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch. When as a woman life and people disappoint her, she will have had practice in disappointment and it will not come..
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disappointment
suffering
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Betty Smith |
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333d889
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What had granma Mary Rommely said? "To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory."
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Betty Smith |
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0171768
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After Election, the politicians forgot their promises and enjoyed an earned rest until New Year, when they started work on the next Election.
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Betty Smith |
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6d40a18
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Katie stood alone... 'They think this is so good,' he thought. 'They think it's good- the tree they got for nothing and their father playing up to them and the singing and the way the neighbors are happy. They think they're mighty lucky that they're living and it's Christmas again. They can't see that we live on a dirty street in a dirty house among people who aren't much good. Johnny and the children can't see how pitiful it is that our ne..
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Betty Smith |
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01c1687
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It takes a lot of doing to die.
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Betty Smith |
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26dec3c
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Money! Would that make it better for them? Yes, it would make it easy. But no, the money wouldn't be enough... That means there must be something bigger than money... An answer came to Katie. It was so simple that a flash of astonishment that felt like a pain shot through her head. Education!
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Betty Smith |
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67a753e
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Oh well, this is only temporary. Everything will be better someday. I'll make it better. After all, I'm young yet.
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Betty Smith |
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89677e8
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And that's where the whole trouble is," thought Francie. "We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand our own selves. Papa and I were two different persons and we understood each other. Mama understands Neeley because he's different from her. I wish I was different in the way that Neeley is." "Then everything's all right now between us?" Katie asked with a smile.
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Betty Smith |
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d073e3d
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Forgiveness," said Mary Rommely, "is a gift of high value. Yet its cost nothing."
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Betty Smith |
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9d30f80
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I will not speak falsely and say to you: 'Do not grieve for me when I go.' I have loved my children and tried to be a good mother and it is right that my children grieve for me. But let your grief be gentle and brief. And let resignation creep into it. Know that I shall be happy. I shall see face to face the great saints I have loved all my life.
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death
grief
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Betty Smith |
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931cf4b
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Katie heard the story. 'It's come at last,' she thought, 'the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them...Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk..
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Betty Smith |
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9512b82
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Yes, when I get big and have my own home, no plush chairs and lace curtains for me. And no rubber plants. I'll have a desk like this in my parlor and white walls and a clean green blotter every Sunday night and a row of shining yellow pencils always sharpened for writing and a golden-brown bowl with a flower or some leaves or berries always in it and books...books..books.
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flowers
library
life
passion
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Betty Smith |
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a752a70
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The child must have a valuable thing which Is called imagination. The child must have a secret world in which live things that never were. It is necessary that she believe. Then when the world becomes too ugly for living in, she can reach back and live in her imagination.... Only by having these things in my mind can I live beyond what I have to live for.
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Betty Smith |
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198b07f
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The neighborhood stores are an important part of a city child's life.
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urban
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Betty Smith |
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6683ea4
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I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle...I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don't happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family...Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children. But shouldn't a ..
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Betty Smith |
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87a0d58
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Francie had heard swearing since she had heard words. Obscenity and profanity had no meaning as such among those people. They were emotional expressions of inarticulate people with small vocabularies; they made a kind of dialect. The phrases could mean many things according to the expression and tone used in saying them. So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smiled tremulously at the kind man. She knew that he was..
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swear-words
swearing
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Betty Smith |
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3048e53
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I believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ, and His Mother, Holy Mary. Jesus was a living baby once. He went bare-footed like we do in the summer. I saw a picture where He was a boy and had no shoes on. And when He was a man, He went fishing, like papa did once. And they could hurt Him, too, like they couldn't hurt God. Jesus wouldn't go around punishing people. He about people. So I will always believe in Jesus Chirst.' They made the sign of t..
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Betty Smith |
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c4e3492
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One of Francie's favorite stores was the one which sold nothing but tea, coffee, and spices. It was an exciting place of rows of lacquered bins and strange, romantic, exotics odors. There were a dozen scarlet coffee bins with adventurous words written across the front in black China ink: Brazil! Argentine! Turkish! Java! Mixed Blend! The tea was in smaller bins: beautiful bins with sloping covers. They read: Oolong! Formosa! Orange Pekoe! B..
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mysterious
odors
spice
store
tea
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Betty Smith |
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722d352
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Now my wandering days are over. It will be bliss to settle down. Bliss. There's a word, now. Bliss to love and to be loved.
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Betty Smith |
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ded11c2
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When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him, The other baby, Francis, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of contempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of hr contempt. She knew it wasn't the little girl's fault. "I must watch myself carefully," ..
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Betty Smith |
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2c753fe
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Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day.
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loss
perspective
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Betty Smith |
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d4a9edb
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Several times that day, the name or thought of Papa had come up. And each time, Francie had felt a flash of tenderness instead of the old stab of pain. "Am I forgetting him?" she thought. "In time to come, will it be hard to remember anything about him? I guess it's like Granma Mary Rommely says: 'With time, passes all.' The first year was hard because we could say last 'lection he voted. Last Thanksgiving he ate with us. But next year it w..
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Betty Smith |
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b5f6be3
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Katie! Don't nag! All of us are what we have to be and everyone lives the life it's in him to live.
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Betty Smith |
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756b1bd
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Francie thought that all the books in the world were in that library and she had a plan about reading all the books in the world. She was reading a book a day in alphabetical order and not skipping the dry ones. She remembered that the first author had been Abbott. She had been reading a book a day for a long time now and she was still in the B's. Already she had read about bees and buffaloes, Bermuda vacations and Byzantine architecture. F..
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Betty Smith |
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0821195
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You must learn to take a joke, Francie, otherwise life will be pretty hard on you.
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Betty Smith |
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57cc2eb
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Why can't they," she thought bitterly, "just give the doll away without saying I am poor and she is rich? Why couldn't they just give it away without all the talking about it?"
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Betty Smith |
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5d69442
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I think it's good that people like us can waste something once in a while and get the feeling of how it would be to have lots of money and not have to worry about scrounging.
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Betty Smith |
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5ef730c
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The Nolan's just could't get enough of life. They lived their own lives up to the hilt but that wasn't enough. They had to fill in on the lives of all the people they made contact with.
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Betty Smith |
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9fab022
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Going home in the trolley, Francie held the shoebox in her lap because Mama had no lap now. Francie thought deep thoughts during her ride. 'If what Granma Mary Rommely said is true, then it must be that no one ever dies, really. Papa is gone, but he's still here in many ways. He's here in Neeley who looks just like him and in Mama who knew him so long. He's here in his mother who began him and who is still living. Maybe I will have a boy so..
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Betty Smith |
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e6efd85
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Spring came early that year and the sweet warm nights made her restless. She walked up and down the streets and through the park. And wherever she went, she saw a boy and a girl together; walking arm-in-arm, sitting on a park bench with their arms around each other, standing closely and in silence in a vestibule. Everyone in the world but Francie had a sweetheart or a friend. She seemed to be the only lonely one in Brooklyn.
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Betty Smith |
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64d1cb4
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And he asked for her whole life as simply as he'd ask for a date. And she promised away her whole life as simply as she'd offer a hand in greeting or farewell.
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Betty Smith |
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4acd705
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Occasionally there is a moment in a person's life when he takes a great stride forward in wisdom, humility, or disillusionment. For a split second he comes into a kind of cosmic understanding. For a trembling breath of time he knows all there is to know. He is loaned the gift the poet yearned for - seeing himself as others see him.
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Betty Smith |
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693b4ad
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you'll always come out all right - no matter what. You're like me that way.' And that's where the whole trouble is," thought Francie. "We're too much alike to understand each other because we don't even understand our own selves. . ."
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Betty Smith |
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96dd0fc
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No, I ain't big enough. I ain't big enough to do a thing like that. I gotta think of myself and my own kids.' He finally came to his conclusion.'Oh, what the h*ll! Them two kids is gotta live in this world. They got to get used to it. They got to learn to give and to take punishment. And by Jesus, it ain't give but take, take, take all the time in this God-damned world.'...So now, when Francie heard themselves called lousy bastards, she smi..
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Betty Smith |
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07a77f5
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She adapted herself to the split-second rhythm of the New Yorker going to and from work. Getting to the office was a nervous ordeal. If she arrived one minute before nine, she was a free person. If she arrived one minute after, she worried because that made her the logical scapegoat of the boss if he happened to be in a bad mood that day.
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Betty Smith |
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abe96b5
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Francie always remembered what that kind teacher told her. "You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you're making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up...
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stories
storytelling
teachers
truth
writing
writing-advice
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Betty Smith |
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dc095da
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Anything you say may be used against you.
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ben
betty-smith
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Betty Smith |
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2c31452
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They learned no compassion from their own anguish. Thus their suffering was wasted.
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compassion
suffering
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Betty Smith |