Mary Cary by Kate Langley Bosher

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

MARY CARY
_"FREQUENTLY MARTHA"_

BY
Kate Langley Bosher

FRONTISPIECE BY
FRANCES ROGERS

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Published By Arrangement With Harper & Brothers

COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
VIRGINIA

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. AN UNTHANKFUL ORPHAN 1
II. THE COMING OF MISS KATHERINE 14
III. MARY, FREQUENTLY MARTHA 27
IV. THE STEPPED-ON AND THE STEPPERS 39
V. "HERE COMES THE BRIDE!" 50
VI. "MY LADY OF THE LOVELY HEART" 61
VII. "STERILIZED AND FERTILIZED" 70
VIII. MARY CARY'S BUSINESS 75
IX. LOVE IS BEST 85
X. THE REAGAN BALL 97
XI. FINDING OUT 103
XII. A TRUE MIRACLE 120
XIII. HIS COMING 133
XIV. THE HURT OF HAPPINESS 141
XV. A REAL WEDDING 155

MARY CARY

I

AN UNTHANKFUL ORPHAN

My name is Mary Cary. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum. You
may think nothing happens in an Orphan Asylum. It does. The orphans are
sure enough children, and real much like the kind that have Mothers and
Fathers; but though they don't give parties or wear truly Paris clothes,
things happen, and that's why I am going to write this story.

To-day I was kept in. Yesterday, too. I don't mind, for I would rather
watch the lightning up here than be down in the basement with the
others. There are days when I love thunder and lightning. I can't flash
and crash, being just Mary Cary; but I'd like to, and when it is done
for me it is a relief to my feelings.

The reason I was kept in was this. Yesterday Mr. Gaffney, the one with
a sunk eye and cold in his head perpetual, came to talk to us for the
benefit of our characters. He thinks it's his duty, and, just naturally
loving to talk, he wears us out once a week anyhow. Yesterday, not
agreeing with what he said, I wouldn't pretend I did, and I was punished
prompt, of course.

I don't care for duty-doers, and I tried not to listen to him; but
tiresome talk is hard not to hear--it makes you so mad. Hear him I did,
and when, after he had ambled on until I thought he really was
castor-oil and I had swallowed him, he blew his nose and said:

"You have much, my children, to be thankful for, and for everything you
should be thankful. Are you? If so, stand up. Rise, and stand upon your
feet."

I didn't rise. All the others did--stood on their feet, just like he
asked. None tried their heads. I was the only one that sat, and when he
saw me, his sunk eye almost rolled out, and his good eye stared at me in
such astonishment that I laughed out loud. I couldn't help it, I truly
couldn't.

I'm not thankful for everything, and that's why I didn't stand up. Can
you be thankful for toothache, or stomachache, or any kind of ache? You
cannot. And not meant to be, either.

The room got awful still, and then presently he said:

"Mary Cary"--his voice was worse than his eye--"Mary Cary, do you mean
to say you have not a thankful heart?" And he pointed his finger at me
like I was the Jezebel lady come to life.

I didn't answer, thinking it safer, and he asked again:

"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.

II

THE COMING OF MISS KATHERINE

Now, why can't I keep on at a thing like Miss Katherine? Why? Because
I'm just Mary Cary, mostly Martha; made of nothing, came from nowhere,
and don't know where I'm going, and have no more system in my nature
than Miss Bray has charms for gentlemen.

But Miss Katherine--well, there never was and never will be but one Miss
Katherine, and there's as much chance of my being like her as there is
of my reaching the stars. I'll never be like her, but she's my friend.
That's the wonderful part of it. She's my friend. And when you've got a
friend like Miss Katherine you've got strength to do anything. To stand
anything, too.

The beautiful part of it is that I live with her; that is, she lives in
the Asylum, and I sleep in the room with her.

It happened this way. Last summer I didn't want to do anything but sit
down. It was the funniest thing, for before that I never did like to sit
down if I could stand up, or skip around, or climb, or run, or dance, or
jump. I never could walk straight or slow, and I never can keep step.

Well, last summer I didn't want to move, and I couldn't eat, and I
didn't even feel like reading. I'd have such queer slipping-away
feelings right in my heart that I'd call myself a drop of ink on a
blotter that was spreading and spreading and couldn't stop. Sometimes I
would think I was sinking down and down, but I really wasn't sinking,
for I didn't move. I only felt like I was, and I was afraid to go to
sleep at night for fear I would die, and I stayed awake so as to know
about it if I did.

And then I began to be afraid of dying, and my heart would beat so I
thought it would wear out. But I didn't tell anybody how I felt. I was
ashamed of being afraid, and I just told God, because I knew He could
understand better than anybody else; and I asked Him please to hold on
to me, I not being able to do much holding myself, and He held. I know
it, for I felt it.

You see, Mrs. Blamire--she's Miss Bray's assistant--was away; Miss Bray
was busy getting ready to go when Mrs. Blamire came back; and Miss Jones
was pickling and preserving. I didn't want to bother her, so I dragged
on, and kept my feelings to myself.

The girls were awful good to me. Real many have relations in Yorkburg,
and if I'd eaten all the fruit they sent me I'd been a tutti-frutti; but
I couldn't eat it. And then one day I began to talk so queer they were
frightened, and told Miss Bray, and she sent for the doctor quick. That
afternoon they took me to the hospital, and the last thing I saw was
little Josie White crying like her heart would break with her arms
around a tree.

"Please don't die, Mary Cary, please don't die!" she kept saying over
and over, and when they tried to make her go in she bawled worse than
ever. I tried to wave my hand.

"I'm not going to die, I'm coming back," I said, and that's all I
remember.

I knew they put me in something and drove off, and then I was in a
little white bed in a big room with a lot of other little beds in it;
and after that I didn't know I was living for three weeks. But I talked
just the same. They told me I made speeches by the hour, and read books
out loud, and recited poems that had never been printed. But when I
stopped and lay like the dead, just breathing, the girls say they heard
there were no hopes, and a lot of them just cried and cried. It was
awful nice of them, and if they hadn't cut my hair off I would have made
a real pretty corpse.

The day I first saw Miss Katherine really good she was standing by my
bed, holding my wrist in one hand and her watch in another, and I
thought she was an angel and I was in heaven. She was in white, and I
took her little white cap for a crown, and I said:

"Are you my Mother?"

She nodded and smiled, but she didn't speak, and I asked again:

"Are you my Mother?"

"Your right-now Mother," she said, and she smiled so delicious I thought
of course I was in heaven, and I spoke once more.

"Where's God?"

Then she stooped down and kissed me.

"In your heart and mine," she answered. "But you mustn't talk, not yet.
Shut your eyes, and I will sing you to sleep." And I shut them. And I
knew I was in heaven, for heaven isn't a place; it's a feeling, and I
had it.

And that's how I met Miss Katherine.

Her father and mother are dead, just like mine. Her father was Judge
Trent, and his father once owned half the houses in Yorkburg, but lost
them some way, and what he didn't lose Judge Trent did after the war.

When her father died Miss Katherine wouldn't live with either of her
brothers, or any of her relations, but went to Baltimore to study to be
a nurse. After she graduated she didn't come back for three or four
years, and she hadn't been back six months when I was taken sick. And
now I sing:

"Praise God from whom that sickness flew."

Sing it inside almost all the time.

Miss Katherine don't have to be a nurse. She has a little money. I don't
know how much, she never mentioning money before me; but she has some,
for I heard Miss Bray and Mrs. Blamire talking one night when they
thought I was asleep; and for once I didn't interrupt or let them know I
was awake.

I had been punished so often for speaking when I shouldn't that this
time I kept quiet, and when they were through I couldn't sleep. I was
so excited I stayed awake all night. And from joy--pure joy.

I had only been back from the hospital a week, and was in the room next
to Mrs. Blamire's, where the children who are sick stay, when I heard
Miss Bray talking to Mrs. Blamire, and at something she said I sat up in
bed. Right or wrong, I tried to hear. I did.

They were sitting in front of the fire, and Miss Bray leaned over and
cracked the coals.

"Have you heard that Miss Katherine Trent is coming here as a trained
nurse?" she said, and she put down the poker, and, folding her arms,
began to rock.

"You don't mean it!" said Mrs. Blamire, and her little voice just
cackled. "Coming here? To this place? I do declare!" And she drew her
chair up closer, being a little deaf.

"That's what she's going to do." Miss Bray took off her spectacles. "The
Board can't afford to pay her a salary, but she's offered to come
without one, and next week she'll start in."

"Katherine Trent always was queer," she went on, still rocking with all
her might. "She can get big prices as a nurse, though she doesn't have
to nurse at all, having money enough to live on without working. And why
she wants to come to a place like this and fool with fifty-odd children
and get no pay for it is beyond my understanding. It's her business,
however, not mine, and I'm glad she's coming."

"I do declare!" And Mrs. Blamire clapped her hands like she was getting
religion. "My, but I'm glad! Miss Katherine Trent coming here! And next
week, you say? I do declare!" And her gladness sounded in her voice. It
was a different kind from Miss Bray's. Even in the dark I could tell,
for hers was thankfulness for the children. Miss Bray was glad for
herself.

That was almost a year ago, and now my hair has come out and curls worse
than ever. It's very thick, and it's brown--light brown.

I'm always intending to stand still in front of the glass long enough to
see what I do look like, but I'm always in such a hurry I don't have
time. I know my eyes are blue, for Miss Katherine said this morning they
got bigger and bluer every day, and if I didn't eat more I'd be nothing
but eyes. If you don't like a thing, can you eat it? You cannot. That
is, in summer you can't. In winter it's a little easier.

I never have understood how Miss Katherine could have come to an Orphan
Asylum to live and to eat Orphan Asylum meals when she could have eaten
the best in Yorkburg. And Yorkburg's best is the best on earth.
Everybody says that who's tried other places, even Miss Webb, who gets
right impatient with Yorkburg's slowness and enjoyment of itself.

And Miss Katherine is living here from pure choice. That's what she is
doing, and she's made living creatures of us, just like God did when He
breathed on Adam and woke him up.

At the hospital she used to ask me all about the Asylum, and, never
guessing why, I told her all I knew, except about Miss Bray. Miss
Katherine had known the Asylum all her life, but had only been in it
twice--just passing it by, not thinking. When I got better and could
talk as much as I pleased, she wanted to know how many of us there were,
what we did, and how we did it: what we ate, and what kind of
underclothes we wore in winter, and how many times a week we bathed all
over; when we got up, and what we studied, and how long we sewed each
day, and how long we played, and when we went to bed--and all sorts of
other things. I wondered why she wanted to know, and when I found out I
could have laid right down and died from pure gladness. I didn't,
though.

Once I asked her what made her do it, and she laughed and said because
she wanted to, and that she was much obliged to me for having found her
work for her. But I believe there's some other reason she won't tell.

And why I believe so is that sometimes, when she thinks I am asleep, I
see her looking in the fire, and there's something in her face that's
never there at any other time. It's a remembrance. I guess most hearts
have them if they live long enough. But you'd never think Miss Katherine
had one, she's so glad and cheerful and busy all the time. I wonder if
it's a sweetheart remembrance? I know three of her beaux; one in
Yorkburg and two from away, who have been to see her frequent times; but
a beau is different from a sweetheart. I'm sure that look means
something secret, and I bet it's a man. Who is he? I don't know. I wish
he was dead. I do!

When I first came back from the hospital my little old sticks of legs
wouldn't hold me up, and down I would go. But I didn't mind that. I just
minded not going to sleep at night. But sleep wouldn't come, and I'd
get so wide awake trying to make it that I began to have a teeny bit of
fever again, and then it was Miss Katherine asked if she might take me
in her room. I was nervous and still needed attention, she said,
and--magnificent gloriousness!--I was sent to her room to stay until
perfectly well, and I'm here yet. Perfectly well because I am here!

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8