A secret isn't any pleasure. What's the use of knowing a thing you can't
let anybody know you know? If I can't tell soon what I've heard about
myself something is liable to happen.
Nearly three months have passed, and I haven't told yet. I'm still
holding out, but it's the most awful experience I ever had.
Another idea has come to me, and if I could see Miss Katherine I could
tell whether to do it or not. If she don't come soon I will do it,
anyhow. I won't be able to help it.
The girls say if I were a darkey they'd think I was seeking. That's
because some days I'm so unnatural quiet and stay so much by myself. I
do that for safety, fearing otherwise I'd speak.
They don't know what's going on inside of me. If they could see they'd
find nothing but quiverings and questions, and if I don't do anything
really violent it's all I ask.
Every morning and every night my prayers are just this: "O Lord, help
Mary Cary through this day. I'm not asking for to-morrow, it not being
here yet. But _This Day_ help me to hold out." And all day long I'm
saying under my breath:
"Hold on, Mary Cary, hold on, hold on.
There never was a night that didn't have a dawn.
There never was a road that didn't have an end.
Wait awhile, wait awhile, and then the letter send."
I say that so often to myself that I'm afraid somebody will hear me
think it. If that letter isn't sent soon, the answer will be received by
a corpse.
I'm never again going to have a secret. It's worse than a tumor or
dropsy. Mrs. Penick has a tumor. I've never seen the dropsy, but a
secret is more dangerous, for it dries you up. Dropsy has water to it.
We had apple-dumplings for dinner. I sold mine to Lucy Pyle for two
cents, and bought a stamp with it. The stamp is for The Letter.
Miss Katherine has come back. Came night before last, but I've been too
excited to write anything down. Everything I do is done in dabs these
days, and few lines at the time is all I'm equal to.
She looks grand. And oh, what a difference her being here makes! We are
children, not just orphans, when she is with us; and it's because she
loves us, trusts us, brings our best part to the top that we are
different when she is about. The very way she laughs--so clear and
hearty--makes you think things aren't so bad, and already they have
picked up. Like my primrose does when I give it water, after forgetting
it till it is as limp as old Miss Sarah Cone's crêpe veil.
I haven't told her anything yet, but I've been watching good. I haven't
seen any particular signs of memories and regrets, she being too busy to
have them since she got back. Still, I believe they are there, and I'm
that afraid I'll say Parke Alden in my sleep I put the covering over my
head, for fear she'd hear me if I did.
I am back in her room, and this afternoon she asked me what I was
looking at her so hard for. I told her she was the best thing to look
at that came my way, and she laughed and called me a foolish child. But
Mary Cary is thinking, and she isn't telling all she thinks about,
either.
Well, it's written. That letter is written and gone. It was to Dr. Parke
Alden. I sent it to his hospital in Michigan. I made it short, because
by nature I write just endless, having gotten in the habit from making
up stories for the girls and scribbling them off when kept in, which in
the past was frequent. This is what I wrote: