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Speaker 1: Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,

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Speaker 1: your host, narrator, and author. We hear at the ten

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Speaker 1: minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or

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Speaker 1: rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

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Speaker 1: pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human

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Speaker 1: condition as ten minutes will permit many novels on steroids.

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Speaker 1: This week we meet Constance. Constance Silence, the fifth of

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Speaker 1: nine children. She bore five children of her own, two surviving.

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Speaker 1: The short, unhappy life of Constance Silence unnerves and disenheartens

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Speaker 1: the hardest souls. But alas her story is as common

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Speaker 1: as past gas, Constance Silence, No one really remembers Constance,

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Speaker 1: not her surviving siblings, not her husbands, not her two

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Speaker 1: now grown children. Her life burned dimly and only briefly,

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Speaker 1: just one score plus three between birth and death. Constance

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Speaker 1: had a vanquished mother and a hard father, siblings both

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Speaker 1: older and younger, no education to speak of beyond the

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Speaker 1: basics of reading and writing, no books in the house

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Speaker 1: other than a Bible covered with dust. Any spark of

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Speaker 1: personality Constants might have posses was suffocated by the relentless

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Speaker 1: drudgery of daily chores. She was thin and plain, and

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Speaker 1: most of the time so quiet. Folks asked if Constance

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Speaker 1: was mute her father Jared's silence. A wheelwright and plow jockey,

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Speaker 1: had been beaten by a stepfather, and so viewed the

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Speaker 1: world with a jaundiced eye. He had never known joy

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Speaker 1: and could not tolerate the thing in others. Jared did

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Speaker 1: everything in his power to make the lives of his

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Speaker 1: wife and children joyless. He never smiled, never offered a

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Speaker 1: kind word, never bounced a baby on his knee, never

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Speaker 1: brought his wife a flower or his children a toy.

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Speaker 1: When money ran low or he drank too many spirits,

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Speaker 1: Jared's nature turned menacing, and the children hid under their

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Speaker 1: beds or out in the shed. As a boy, Jared

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Speaker 1: had been backhanded for no offense, and so swinging with

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Speaker 1: impunity came naturally. He had struck his wife so many

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Speaker 1: times she cowered like a beaten dog. Constance, of all

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Speaker 1: the nine children, due to her quiet and gentle nature,

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Speaker 1: suffered the most from this domestic horror. She developed a

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Speaker 1: nervous tick that made her shoulders a neck twitch, uncontrollably.

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Speaker 1: Her dark gray eyes blinked incessantly, and when her father roared,

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Speaker 1: Constance's whole body trembled. She ate but little, as her

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Speaker 1: stomach revolted from even small quantities of food. Sleep was

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Speaker 1: its own form of torture, as she had terrible dreams

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Speaker 1: of being held under water or trapped in a burning building.

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Speaker 1: These dreams stirred her awake many times during the night.

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Speaker 1: In this way, Constance passed her youth. When she turned fifteen,

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Speaker 1: she was given in matrimony to a man nearly twice

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Speaker 1: her age. She could only hope the man would be

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Speaker 1: a good man, a kind man. His name was Luther Silence,

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Speaker 1: a distant cousin who lived several villages to the north.

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Speaker 1: Luther was a hog farmer and distiller of moonshine. He

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Speaker 1: had already buried two wives and was looking for a

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Speaker 1: third wife to take care of his five children and

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Speaker 1: add a few more to his brood. The oldest of

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Speaker 1: these children, a boy, was but a few years younger

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Speaker 1: than Constance. There was a wedding, and that night the

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Speaker 1: marriage was consummated. Although any sane or civilized person would

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Speaker 1: have called it the rape of a miner, plain and

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Speaker 1: simple Constance bore the pain and humility of forced sex

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Speaker 1: with a clenched teeth and a nearly unbearable sadness. A

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Speaker 1: homecoming to her father's doomed and dreadful house would have

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Speaker 1: been paradise compared to the bed of this foul and

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Speaker 1: practically toothless man who smelled of stale sweat and pig shit.

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Speaker 1: Constance cared for his five children. She cooked their meals

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Speaker 1: and cleaned their plates, and mended their tattered clothes. They

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Speaker 1: mocked her incessantly, called her deaf and dumb because she

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Speaker 1: never spoke and seemed not to hear a word they said.

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Speaker 1: Soon she grew heavy with child. The baby came early,

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Speaker 1: with a deformed head and big bug eyes. Luther took

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Speaker 1: it down to the creek and drowned it. A second

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Speaker 1: baby was the same, and then a third. Constance and Luther,

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Speaker 1: it turned out, were not distant cousins at all, but

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Speaker 1: rather two close cousins who shared the same great grandparents.

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Speaker 1: Luther took Constance back to her father. Her mother had

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Speaker 1: died some months earlier, and the rest of her siblings

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Speaker 1: had flown the nest. Jared had a new woman, a

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Speaker 1: stout scullery maid with a foul mouth and a fireplace poker.

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Speaker 1: She forced Constance to do all the cooking and cleaning

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Speaker 1: and garbage hauling. If Constance dawdled, that chubby bitch would

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Speaker 1: give her a hard thwack with the poker. Because the

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Speaker 1: scullery maid performed the most amazing magic tricks in the sack,

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Speaker 1: Jared merely snickered and looked the other way when his

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Speaker 1: mistress abused his daughter. In this way, life went along

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Speaker 1: until that winter when the pestilence swept through the village.

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Speaker 1: First Jared, then the scullery maid, and finally Constance lay

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Speaker 1: sick with the virus. Fever, rash, nausea and hallucinations ravaged

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Speaker 1: the house. Constance, after a long convalescence, recovered, Jared and

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Speaker 1: his scullery maid succumbed. Constance inherited the house, and word

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Speaker 1: quickly spread that the silence woman was a property owner.

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Speaker 1: The suitors came scurrying. Constance fell for one who was

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Speaker 1: silly and made her smile. She could not remember the

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Speaker 1: last time she had smiled, had she ever smiled even once?

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Speaker 1: They married and he moved into the house, and they

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Speaker 1: consummated their marriage in a quiet and pleasant manner. The

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Speaker 1: honeymoon went on for several weeks, long enough for Constance

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Speaker 1: to think they would live happily. Ever after, Constance silence

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Speaker 1: was for the first time in her life, happy, content

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Speaker 1: at peace. She grew heavy with child. A seven pound

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Speaker 1: baby girl was born some months later, whole and healthy

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Speaker 1: and jolly. Mama held that baby to her swollen bosom

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Speaker 1: hours and hours. Every day that baby was Constance felt

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Speaker 1: certain a miracle. Her husband grew jealous of the baby,

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Speaker 1: of the bond between his wife and daughter. He grew

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Speaker 1: irritable and indolent. He took up with horrors and daily

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Speaker 1: lost his temper. One night, the baby wailing from one

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Speaker 1: ailment or another, he ordered Constance to shut the child up.

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Speaker 1: When this proved difficult, he smacked his wife halfway across

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Speaker 1: the room, and then a moment later he fell upon her,

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Speaker 1: sobbing and repentant and promising to never ever strike her again.

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Speaker 1: Constance was such a fool to believe him, but what

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Speaker 1: could she do. She was just a woman, So she

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Speaker 1: gave herself to him that very night, and nine months

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Speaker 1: later a second baby girl arrived, whole and healthy, but

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Speaker 1: this babe proved even noisier than the first, and took

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Speaker 1: up even more of her mother's time. The father grew

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Speaker 1: bolder and bolder with his hands, struck his wife so

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Speaker 1: hard one evening she saw stars, fell back, struck her

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Speaker 1: head on the fireplace, and went into a coma. She

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Speaker 1: lay in that state for some time, and then perished

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Speaker 1: just a few days after her twenty third birthday. A

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Speaker 1: bald up piece of paper and a dusty bible were

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Speaker 1: found shoved in the back of Constance's dresser drawer. On

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Speaker 1: the paper, or scribbled these words in her jittery hand.

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Speaker 1: Good God, it is nothing more than muscle and Timothy

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Speaker 1: chapter two, verses nine through fourteen, that has ruined sweet

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Speaker 1: life for all us. Quiet ladies, Thanks for listening to

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Speaker 1: this original audio presentation of Constance Silence, narrated by the author.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds

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Speaker 1: to rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast, and then

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Speaker 1: go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional information

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Speaker 1: about the author and to view his extensive canon. The

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Speaker 1: ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pleglici and Josh

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Speaker 1: Colotney and as part of the Elvis Duran Podcast Network

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Speaker 1: in partnership with Iheartproductions. Until next time, this is Bill Simpson,

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Speaker 1: your ten minute storyteller,