"Do I understand, Mary Cary"--and by this time he was real
red-in-the-face mad--"do I understand you are not thankful for all that
comes to you? Do I understand aright?"
"Yes, sir, you understand right," I said, getting up this time. "I am
not thankful for everything in my life. I'd be much thankfuller to have
a Mother and Father on earth than to have them in heaven. And there are
a great many other things I would like different." And down I sat, and
was kept in for telling the truth.
Miss Bray says it was for impertinence (Miss Bray is the Head Chief of
this Institution), but I didn't mean to be impertinent. I truly didn't.
Speaking facts is apt to make trouble, though--also writing them. To-day
Miss Bray kept me in for putting something on the blackboard I forgot to
rub out. I wrote it just for my own relief, not thinking about anybody
else seeing it. What I wrote was this:
"Some people are crazy all the time;
All people are crazy sometimes."
That's why I'm up in the punishment-room to-day, and it only proves that
what I wrote is right. It's crazy to let people know you know how queer
they are. Miss Bray takes personal everything I do, and when she saw
that blackboard, up-stairs she ordered me at once. She loves to punish
me, and it's a pleasure I give her often.
I brought my diary with me, and as I can't write when anybody is about,
I don't mind being by myself every now and then. Miss Bray don't know
this, or my punishment would take some other form.
I just love a diary. You see, its something you can tell things to and
not get in trouble. When writing in it I can relieve my feelings by
saying what I think, which Miss Katherine says is risky to do to
people, and that it's safer to keep your feelings to yourself. People
don't really care about them, and there's nothing they get so tired of
hearing about. A diary doesn't talk, neither do animals; but a diary
understands better than animals, and you can call things by their right
name in a book which it isn't safe to do out loud, even to a dog.
I know I am not unthankful, and I would much rather have a Father and
Mother on earth than to have them in heaven, but I guess I should have
kept my preferences to myself. Somehow preferences seem to make people
mad.
But a Mother and Father in heaven _are_ too far away to be truly
comforting. I like the people I love to be close to me. I guess that is
why, when I was little, I used to hold out my arms at night, hoping my
Mother would come and hold me tight. But she never came, and now I know
it's no use.
There are a great many things that are no use. One is in telling people
what they don't want to know. I found that out almost two years ago,
when I wasn't but ten. The way I found out was this.
One morning, it was an awful cold morning, Miss Bray came into the
dining-room just as we were taking our seats for breakfast, and she
looked so funny that everybody stared, though nobody dared to even smile
visible. All the children are afraid of Miss Bray; but at that time I
hadn't found out her true self, and, not thinking of consequences, I
jumped up and ran over to her and whispered something in her ear.
"What!" she said. "What did you say?" And she bent her head so as to
hear better.
"You forgot one side of your face when fixing this morning," I said,
still whispering, not wanting the others to hear. "Only one side is
pink--" But I didn't get any further, for she grabbed my hand and almost
ran with me out of the room.
"You piece of impertinence!" she said, and her eyes had such sparks in
them I knew my judgment-day had come. "You little piece of impertinence!
You shall be punished well for this." I was. I didn't mean to be
impertinent. I thought she'd like to know. I thought wrong.
I loathe Miss Bray. The very sight of her shoulders in the back gets me
mad all over without her saying a word, and everything in me that's
wrong comes right forward and speaks out when she and I are together.
She thinks she could run this earth better than it's being done, and
she walks like she was the Superintendent of most of it. But I could
stand that. I could stand her cheeks, and her frizzed front, and a good
many other things; but what I can't stand is her passing for being
truthful when she isn't. She tells stories, and she knows I know it; and
from the day I found it out I have stayed out of her way; and were she
the Queen of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and the United States I'd want
her to stand out of mine. I truly would.
Her outrageousest story I heard her tell myself. It was over a year ago,
and we were in the room where the ladies were having a Board meeting. I
had come in to bring some water, and had a waiter full of glasses in my
hands, and was just about to put them on the table when I heard Miss
Bray tell her Lie.
That's what she did. She Lied!
Those glasses never touched that table. My hands lost their hold, and
down they came with a crash. Every one smashed to smithereens, and I
standing staring at Miss Bray. The way she told her story was this. The
Board deals us out for adoption, and that morning they were discussing a
request for Pinkie Moore, and, as usual, Miss Bray didn't want Pinkie
to go. You see, Pinkie was very useful. She did a lot of disagreeable
things for Miss Bray, and Miss Bray didn't want to lose her. And when
Mrs. Roane, who is the only Board lady truly seeing through her, asked,
real sharplike, why Pinkie shouldn't go this time, Miss Bray spoke out
like she was really grieved.
"I declare, Mrs. Roane," she said--and she twirled her keys round and
round her fingers, and twitched the nostril parts of her nose just like
a horse--"I declare, Mrs. Roane, I hate to tell you, I really do. But
Pinkie Moore wouldn't do for adoption. She has a terrible temper, and
she's so slow nobody would keep her. And then, too"--her voice was the
Pharisee kind that the Lord must hate worse than all others--"and then,
too, I am sorry to say Pinkie is not truthful, and has been caught
taking things from the girls. I hope none of you will mention this, as I
trust by watching over her to correct these faults. She begs me so not
to send her out for adoption, and is so devoted to me that--" And just
then she saw me, which she hadn't done before, I being behind Mrs.
Armstead, and she stopped like she had been hit.
For a minute I didn't breathe. I didn't. All I did was to stare--stare
with mouth open and eyes out; and then it was the glasses went down and
I flew into the yard, and there by the pump was Pinkie.
"Oh, Pinkie!" I said. "Oh, Pinkie!" And I caught her round the waist and
raced up and down the yard like a wild man from Borneo. "Oh, Pinkie,
what do you think?" Poor Pinkie, thinking a mad dog had bit me, tried to
make me stop, but stop I wouldn't until there was no more breath. And
then we sat down on the woodpile, and I hugged her so hard I almost
broke her bones.
First I was so mad I couldn't cry, and then crying so I couldn't speak.
But after a while words came, and I said:
"Pinkie Moore, are you devoted to Miss Bray? Are you? I want the truest
truth. Are you devoted to her?"
"Devoted to Miss Bray? Devoted!" And poor little Pinkie, who has no more
spirit than a poor relation, spoke out for once. "I hate her!" she said.
"I hate her worse than prunes; and if somebody would only adopt me, I'd
be so thankful I'd choke for joy, except for leaving you." Then she
boohoo'd too, and the tears that fell between us looked like we were
artesian wells--they certainly did.
But Pinkie didn't know what caused my tears. Mine were mad tears, and
not being able to tell her why they came, I had to send her to the house
to wash her face. I washed mine at the pump, and then worked off some of
my mad by sweeping the yard as hard as I could, wishing all the time
Miss Bray was the leaves, and trying to make believe she was. I was full
of the things the Bible says went into swine, and I knew there would be
trouble for me before the day was out. But there wasn't. Not even for
breaking the pump-handle was I punished, and Miss Bray tried so hard to
be friendly that at first I did not understand. I do now.
That was my first experience in finding out that some one who looked
like a lady on the outside was mean and deceitful on the inside, and it
made me tremble all over to find it could be so. Since then I have never
pretended to be friends with Miss Bray. As for her, she hates me--hates
me because she knows I know what sort of a person she is, a sort I
loathe from my heart.
When I first got my diary I thought I was going to write in it every
day. I haven't, and that shows I'm no better on resolves than I am on
keeping step. I never keep step. Sometimes I've thought I was really
something, but I'm not. Nobody much is when you know them too well. It
is a good thing for your pride when you keep a diary, specially when you
are truthful in it. Each day that you leave out is an evidence of
character--poor character--for it shows how careless and put-off-y you
are; both of which I am.
But it isn't much in life to be an inmate of a Humane Association, or a
Home, or an Asylum, or whatever name you call the place where job-lot
charity children live. And that's what I am, an Inmate. Inmates are like
malaria and dyspepsia: something nobody wants and every place has.
Minerva James says they are like veterans--they die and yet forever
live.
Well, anyhow, whenever I used to do wrong, which was pretty constant, I
would say to myself it didn't matter, nobody cared. And if I let a
chance slip to worry Miss Bray I was sorry for it; but that was before I
understood her, and before Miss Katherine came. Since Miss Katherine
came I know it's yourself that matters most, not where you live or
where you came from, and I'm thinking a little more of Mary Cary than I
used to, though in a different way. As for Miss Bray, I truly try at
times to forget she's living.
But she's taught me a good deal about Human Nature, Miss Bray has. About
the side I didn't know. It's a pity there are things we have to know. I
think I will make a special study of Human Nature. I thought once I'd
take up Botany in particular, as I love flowers; or Astronomy, so as to
find out all about those million worlds in the sky, so superior to
earth, and so much larger; but I think, now, I'll settle on Human
Nature. Nobody ever knows what it is going to do, which makes it full of
surprises, but there's a lot that's real interesting about it. I like
it. As for its Bray side, I'll try not to think about it; but if there
are puddles, I guess it's well to know where, so as not to step in them.
I wish we didn't have to know about puddles and things! I'd so much
rather know little and be happy than find out the miserable much some
people do.
Anyhow, I won't have to remember all I learn, for Miss Katherine says
there are many things it's wise to forget, and whenever I can I'll
forget mean things. I'd forget Miss Bray's if she'd tell me she was
sorry and cross her heart she'd never do them again. But I don't believe
she ever will. God is going to have a hard time with Miss Bray. She's
right old to change, and she's set in her ways--bad ways.