"MY LADY OF THE LOVELY HEART"
Beautiful gloriousness! Miss Katherine has come back!
What a different place some people can make the same place!
Yesterday there wasn't an interesting thing in Yorkburg. Nothing but
dust and shabby old houses and poky people who knew nothing to talk
about, and to-day--oh, to-day it's dear! I love it!
You see, after that wedding everything went wrong. The girls said it
wasn't fair for me to be punished so much more than the rest, and they
wanted to tell the Board about it; but for once I agreed with Miss Bray.
"I did it. I made it up and fixed everything, and you all just agreed,"
I said. "And if anybody has to pay, I'm the one to do it." And I paid
all right. Paid to the full. But it's over now, and I'm not going to
think about it any more. When a thing is over, that should be the end
of it, Miss Katherine says, and with me what she says goes.
Miss Bray is away. If some of her relations liked her well enough to
have her stay a few months with them, she could get leave of absence;
but she's never been known to stay but four weeks. She's gone to visit
her sister somewhere in Fauquier County. Her sister's husband always
leaves home for his health when she arrives, and Miss Bray says she
thinks it's so queer he has the same kind of spells at the same time
every year.
But now Miss Katherine's back, nothing matters. Nothing!
Yesterday I was just a squirrel in a cage. All day long I was saying:
"Well, Squirrel, turn your little wheel. That's all you can do; turn
your little wheel." And inside I was turning as hard and fast as a
sure-enough squirrel turns; but outside I was just mechanical.
I wonder sometimes I don't blaze up right before people's eyes. I'm so
often on fire--that is, my mind and heart are--that I think at times my
body will surely catch. Thus far it hasn't, but if I don't go somewhere,
see something, do something different, it's apt to, and the doctors
won't have a name for the new kind of inflammation.
I'm going to die after a while, and I'm so afraid I will do it before I
travel some that if I were a boy child I'd go anyhow. But I can't go.
That is, not yet.
Miss Katherine has been travelling for two months up North. She's been
with her brother and his wife. The wife is sick, or she thinks she is,
which Miss Katherine says is a hard disease to cure, and she's kept them
moving from place to place.
They wanted Miss Katherine to go to Europe with them this fall, but she
isn't going. She's been twice, and says she don't want to go. But I
don't believe it's that. I believe it's something else.
But sufficient unto the day is the happiness thereof! I'm going to enjoy
her staying, and already everything seems different.
You see, Miss Katherine lives here just for love, and when you do things
for love you do them differently from the way you do them for money.
We are just Charity children, some not knowing who they are, I being one
of that kind; but she never treats us as if she thinks of that. If we
were relations she liked, she couldn't be kinder or nicer, and when a
child is in trouble Miss Katherine is the one that's gone to at once.
She is never too tired or too busy to listen, but she's awful firm; and
there's no nonsense or sullenness or shamming where she is. She can see
through the insides of your soul, up to the top and down to the tip, and
in front of her eyes you are just your plain self. Only that, and
nothing more. They are gray, her eyes are, with a dark rim around the
gray part; and she has the longest black lashes I ever saw. Her hair is
black, too, like an Eastern Princess and in the morning when she puts
her cap on and her nurse's white dress, which she wears when on duty, I
call her to myself, "My Lady of the Lovely Heart," and I could kneel
down and say my prayers to her.
I don't, though, for she would tell me pretty quick to get up. She
doesn't like things like that, and, of course, it would look queer.
But I don't know anybody who isn't queer about something. Either stupid
queer, or silly queer, or smart queer, or beautiful queer, or religious
queer, or selfish queer, or some other kind.
Miss Bray is the Queen of Queers.
But Miss Katherine is queer, too. If she wasn't, she wouldn't stay at
this Orphan Asylum, just to help us children, and doing it as cheerfully
as if she were happier here than she would be anywhere else. If her
staying isn't queerness, beautiful queerness, what is it?
I don't understand it, and I don't believe I ever will understand how
any one who can get ice-cream will take prunes.
But Miss Katherine has got a way of seeing the funny side of things, and
sometimes I can't tell whether she minds prunes and pruny things or not.
I'm sure she does, but she says, when you can't change a thing, don't
let it change you, and that an inward disposition is hard on other
people.
I don't know what that means, but I think it's the same as saying
there's no use in always chewing the rag. Martha is right much inclined
to be a chewer.
Miss Webb is, too. She is Miss Katherine's best friend, and I just love
to hear her talk.
She always comes once a week, often twice, to spend the evening at the
Asylum with Miss Katherine, and sometimes when they think I'm asleep,
I'm not. I'd be a nuisance if I kept popping up and saying, "I'm not
asleep, speak low." So when I can't, really can't, sleep, though I do
try, I hear them talking, and the things Miss Webb says are a great
relief to my feelings.
She doesn't come to supper, orphan-asylum suppers being refreshments to
stay from, not come to, but nearly always they make something on a
chafing-dish. Something that's good, painful good.
Miss Webb says Miss Katherine's stomach has some rights, which is true;
and when they begin to cook, I just sleep away, breathing regular and
easy, so they won't know I am awake, for fear they might think I am not
asleep on purpose.
But I have to hold on to the bed and stuff my ears and nose so as not to
hear and smell, for I am that hungry I could eat horse if it had
Worcestershire sauce on it. And that is what they put in their things,
which shows that in eating, even, Miss Katherine preaches sense and
practises taste.
Miss Webb just laughs at theories, and brings all sorts of good things
with her. She says doctors have wronged more stomachs than they've ever
righted by all this dieting business, and, while there's sense in some
of it, there's more nonsense; and as for her, she don't believe in it.
I don't know anything about it; but I don't, either.
They always save me some of whatever they make, which I get the next
day. But if I could rise out of bed and eat as much as I want out of
that chafing-dish, there would be a funeral Miss Bray would like to
attend. The corpse would be Mary Cary, died Martha.
There is a screen at the foot of my bed, put there so the light won't
bother me and so I won't be seen. And, thinking I am asleep, Miss
Katherine and Miss Webb talk on as if I were dead; and it's very
interesting the things they talk about.
Of course, Miss Webb came over last night, and, after talking about two
hours, she said: "Oh, I forgot to tell you. Lizzie Lane is going to
marry Bob Rogers, and right away. I don't suppose you've heard."
"Yes, I have; Lizzie wrote me." And Miss Katherine took the hair-pins
out of her hair and let it fall down her back. "What made her change her
mind? What is she marrying him for?"
"How do I know?" And Miss Webb tasted the chocolate to see if it was
sweet enough.
"How does anybody know what a man is married for? In most cases you
can't risk a guess. Lizzie is a woman, therefore 'hath reason or
unreason for her act.'"
"How did it happen? What made her change her mind?" and Miss Katherine
threw her hair-pins on the bureau and stooped down to get her slippers.
"How does Lizzie explain it?"
"She says she was so sleepy she doesn't remember whether she said yes or
no. But Bob remembers, and the wedding is to be week after next. He's
courted her three times a year for seven years; but since he's been
living North he hasn't even written to her, and she didn't know he was
in town until he came up that night to see her.
"He stayed until after one o'clock, and didn't mention marriage. But as
he got up to go he told her his house was going to send him on a six
months' trip to Japan. If she would marry him and go, say so. If not,
say that, too, but for the last time. Lizzie said she'd go."
Miss Katherine fastened her kimono, put her feet up on the chair in
front of her, and clasped her hands behind her head.
"I don't wonder at the unhappy marriages," she said. "The queer part is
there aren't more of them. Why did Bob wait eight years to talk to
Lizzie like this? Why is it a man has so little understanding of a
woman?"
"Why? Because he's a Man. The Lord made him, and there must be some
reason for him; but even the Lord must sometimes get worn out at his
dumbness. However--"
She stopped, for the chocolate was boiling over; then she began to sing:
"Before marriage, men love most.
After marriage, women best.
Marriage many changes makes--
Heart is happy or heart breaks."
And she sang it so many times that I went to sleep and dreamed the dream
I love most.
I see hundreds and hundreds of little creatures (they are the Mary part
of little children), and they are afraid and shivering and standing
about, not knowing where to go or what to do. And then Miss Katherine is
in the midst of them, smiling and beckoning, and they follow and follow,
and wings come out. Just tiny ones at first, and then larger and larger,
and presently they fly all around her, and she points the way, smiling
and cheering.
And then they rise higher and higher, and off they go, and she is alone.
Tired out but glad, because she taught them how to use their wings.