I don't believe I ever have written anything about my first years at
this Asylum. I am naturally a wandering person. Well, I was happy. I
know I've said that before, but Miss Katherine says that's one of the
few things you can say often.
I had a kitten, and a chicken which I killed by mistake. I took it to
the pump to wash it, and it lost its breath and died. I still put
flowers on the place where its grave was.
It was my first to die. I have lost many others since: a cat, and a
rabbit, and a rooster called Napoleon because he was so strutty and
domineering to his wives. I didn't put up anything to his grave. I
didn't think the hens would like it. They just despised him.
Then there were the remains of Rebecca Baker. She was of rags, with
button eyes and no teeth, just marks for them; but I loved her very
much. I kept her as long as there was anything to hold her by; but after
legs and arms went, and the back of her head got so thin from lack of
sawdust that she had neuralgia all the time, I found her dead one
morning, and buried her at once.
I loved Rebecca Baker: not for looks, but for comfort. I could talk to
her without fear of her telling. She always knew how hungry I was, and
how I hated oatmeal without sugar, and she never talked back.
During the years from three to nine I lived just mechanical, except on
the inside. I got up to a bell and cleaned to a bell, and sat down to
eat to a bell; rose to a bell, went to school to a bell, came out to a
bell, worked to a bell, sewed to a bell, played to a bell, said my
prayers to a bell, got in bed to a bell, and the next day and every day
did the same thing over to the same old bell.
But when I marry my children's father there are to be no bells in the
house we live in. Only buttons, with no particular time to be pressed.
We go to church to a bell, too; that, is to Sunday-school. We always go
to St. John's Sunday-school--Episcopal. The man who left this place put
it in his will that we had to, but we go to all the other churches.
Episcopal the first Sunday, Methodist the second, Presbyterian the
third, and Baptist the fourth, and when we get through we begin all over
again.
We go to church like we do everything else, two by two. Start at a tap
of that same old bell, and march along like wooden figures wound up; and
the people who see us don't think we are really truly children or like
theirs, except in shape inside. They think we just love our hideous
clothes, and that we ought to be thankful for molasses and
bread-and-milk every night in the week but one, and if we're not, we're
wicked. Rich people think queer things.
Sundays at the Humane are terribly religious.
They begin early and last until after supper, and if anybody is sorry
when Sunday is over, it's never been mentioned out loud. We have prayers
and Bible-reading before breakfast every day, but on Sundays longer.
Then we go to Sunday-school, where some of the children stare at us like
we were foreign heathen who have come to get saved. Some nudge each
other and laugh. But real many are nice and sweet, and I just love that
little Minnie Dawes, who sits in front of me. She wears the prettiest
hats in Yorkburg, and I get lots of ideas from them. I trim hats in my
mind all the time Miss Sallie is talking--Miss Sallie is our teacher.
She is a good lady, Miss Sallie Ray is. Her chief occupation is
religion, and as for going to church, it's the true joy of her life.
She's in love with Mr. Benson, the Superintendent, and very regular at
all the services. So is he.
But for teaching children Miss Sallie wasn't meant. She really wasn't.
She never surely knows the lesson herself, and it was such fun asking
her all sorts of questions just to see her flounder round for answers
that I used to pretend I wanted to know a lot of things I didn't. But I
don't do that now. It was like punching a lame cat to see it hop, and I
stopped.
She don't ask me anything, either. Never has since the day Mr. Benson
came in our class and asked for a little review, and Martha Cary made
trouble, of course.
Miss Sallie was so red and excited by Mr. Benson sitting there beside
her that she didn't know what she was doing. She didn't, or she wouldn't
have asked me questions, knowing I never say the things I ought. But
after a minute she did ask me, fanning just as hard as she could. It
was in January.
"Now, Mary Cary, tell us something of the people we have been studying
about this winter," she said, "Mention something of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, and Peter and Paul. Who was Abraham?"
"Abraham was a coward," I said.
"A what?" And her voice was a little shriek. "A what?"
"A coward. He was! He passed his wife off for his sister, fearing
trouble for himself, and not thinking of consequences for her."
"That will do," she said, and she fanned harder than ever, and looked
real frightened at Mr. Benson, who was blowing his nose. "Susie Rice,
who was Jacob?"
Susie didn't know. Nobody knew, so I spoke again.
"Jacob was a rascal. He deceived his father and stole from his brother.
But he prospered and repented, and died prominent."
Mr. Benson got up and said he believed his nose was bleeding, and went
out quick, and since then Miss Sallie has never asked me a single
question. Not one.
Now I wonder what made Martha speak out like that? Abraham and Jacob
were good men who did some bad things, but generally only their goodness
is mentioned. While you're living it's apt to be the other way.
But I'm glad the bad is overlooked in time. Maybe that is what God will
do with everybody. He'll wipe out all the wrongness and meanness, and
see through it to the good. I hope that's the way it's going to be, for
that's my only chance.
Since Miss Sallie stopped asking me anything, and I her, I have a lovely
time in my mind taking things off the other children and putting them on
the Orphans. There's Margaret Evans. In the winter she's always blue and
frozen, and I'd give her that Mallory child's velvet coat and gray muff
and tippet, and put Margaret's blue cape and calico dress on her.
Poor little Margaret! She's so humble and thankful she gets even less
than the rest, it looks like, though I suppose in clothes she has the
same allowance, and the difference, maybe, is in herself.
Some people are born to be stepped on, and of steppers there are always
a-plenty.
After Sunday-school we walk to the church we're going to, two by two,
just alike and all in blue. The minister always mentions us in his
prayers, except at St. John's, the prayer-book not providing for Orphans
in particular.
When church is over we march home and have dinner, and after dinner we
study the lesson for next Sunday and practise hymns until time for the
afternoon service. That begins at four, and some of the town ministers
preach or talk, generally preach, long and wearisome.
The Episcopal minister gets through in a hurry. We love to have him. He
talks so fast we don't half understand, and before we know it he's got
his hand up and we hear him saying: "And now to the Father and to the
Son--." And the rest is mumbled, but we know he's through and is glad of
it, and so are we.
The Presbyterian Sunday is the longest and solemnest, and I always write
a new story in my mind when Dr. Moffett preaches. He is very learned,
and knows Hebrew and Latin and Greek, but not much about little girls.
Poor Mrs Blamire; she tries to keep awake, but she can't do it; and
after the first five minutes she puffs away just as regular as if she
were wound up. Once I shut my eyes and tried to puff like her, but I
forgot to be careful, and did it so loud the girls came near getting in
trouble. Dr. Moffett is deaf, and didn't hear. Miss Bray heard.
But the Baptist minister don't let you sleep on his Sunday. He used to
try to make the girls come up and profess, but now he don't ask even
that. Just sit where you are and hold up your hand, and when you join
the church--any church will answer--you are saved. I don't understand
it.
We all like the Methodist minister. I don't think he knows many dead
languages. He don't have much time to study, being so busy helping
people; but he knows how to talk to us children, and he always makes me
wish I wasn't so bad. He always does, and the Mary part of me just rises
right up on his Sunday, and Martha is ashamed of herself. He believes in
getting better by the love way. So do I.
Miss Katherine is going away next week to stay two months. Going to her
army brother's first, and then to the California brother, who's North
somewhere. And from the time she told me I've felt like Robinson
Crusoe's daughter would have felt, if he'd had one, and gone off and
left her on that desert island.
I don't know what we're going to do when she goes away. I could shed
gallons of tears, only I don't like tears, and then, too, she might see
me. I want her to think I'm glad she's going, for she needs a change.
But, oh, the difference her going will make!
I will be nothing but Martha. I know it. Nothing but Martha until she
comes back. The Mary part of me is so sick at the thought she hasn't any
backbone, and Martha is showing signs already.
And that shows I'm just nothing, for Miss Katherine has taught us,
without exactly telling, how we can't do what we ought by wanting. We've
got to work. In plain words, its watch and pray, and with me it's the
watching that's most important. If I'm not on the lookout, and don't nab
Martha right away, praying don't have any effect. I'm a natural pray-er,
but on watching I'm poor.
I couldn't make any one understand what Miss Katherine has done for us
since she's been here. Some words don't tell things. The nursing when
we're sick is only a part, and though she's fixed up one of the rooms
just like a hospital-room, with everything so white and clean and sweet
in it that it's real joy to be sick, we're not sick often.
It's the keeping us well that's kept her so busy. She's explained so
many things to us we didn't know before, she's almost made me like my
body. I didn't use to. Not a bit.
It's such a nuisance, and needs so much attention to keep it going
right. So often it was freezing cold, or blazing hot, or hungry, and had
to be dressed in such ugly clothes that I was ashamed of it. And if ever
I could have hung it up in the closet or put it away in a bureau-drawer,
I would have done it while I went out and had a good time. But I
couldn't do it. I had to take it everywhere I went, and until Miss
Katherine came I had mighty little use for it.
But since she's been here the girls are much cleaner, and we don't mind
so much not having the things to eat that we like. That is, not quite so
much. But almost. When you're downright hungry for the taste of things,
it don't satisfy to say to yourself "You don't really need it. Be
quiet." And being made of flesh and blood, most of us would rather eat
the things we want to than the things we ought to.
But the dining-room is much nicer. We have flowers on the table, and the
cooking is better, though we still have prunes.