Mary Cary / Frequently Martha""

Cary, mostly Martha; made of nothing, came from nowhere, and don't know where I'm g

ke 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. S

with her; that is, she lives in the As

t thing, for before that I never did like to sit down if I could stand up, or skip around, or c

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

ow I felt. I was ashamed of being afraid, and I just told God, because I knew He could understand better than anybody else;

ing ready to go when Mrs. Blamire came back; and Miss Jones was pickling and preser

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 aft

t saying over and over, and when they tried to make her

m coming back," I said, a

. 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 bre

wrist in one hand and her watch in another, and I thought she was an angel and I was

ou my

, but she didn't spea

ou my

he smiled so delicious I thought of cour

re's

oped down an

hut your eyes, and I will sing you to sleep." And I shut them. And I knew

ow I met Mis

Trent, and his father once owned half the houses in Yorkburg, but los

ations, but went to Baltimore to study to be a nurse. After she graduated she didn't come back f

om whom that s

ide almost

mentioning money before me; but she has some, for I heard Miss Bray and Mrs. Blamire talking one n

is time I kept quiet, and when they were through I couldn't sleep.

e's, where the children who are sick stay, when I heard Miss Bray talking to Mrs. Blam

the fire, and Miss Bray lean

here as a trained nurse?" she said, and she put do

ice just cackled. "Coming here? To this place? I do decla

acles. "The Board can't afford to pay her a salary, but she's

n'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

t coming here! And next week, you say? I do declare!" And her gladness sounded in her voice. It was a different kind fro

r has come out and curls worse than ever.

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'

als when she could have eaten the best in Yorkburg. And Yorkburg's best is the best on earth. Everybody says that

what she is doing, and she's made living creatures of us,

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

she wanted to, and that she was much obliged to me for having found h

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 an

leep 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.

ht off. I kept wishing I was King David, so I could write a book of gratitudes and psalms and praises, and that was the first night I ever real

n't been used since kingdom come, and the cobwebs in it would have filled a barrel. It had been a packing-room, an

e opposite the door you come in. And when the paper was put on you felt like you were in a great big garden of roses

s at them with cretonne curtains just full of pink roses, looped back from the muslin ones; and the couch and the cushions and some chairs were all c

filled with books in shelves which old Peter Sands made and painted white for her. She lets me look at them as much as I want, and says I can read as many as I cho

what are to be, I'm going to have my picture painted as soon as I marry your father, so you can know what I looked like in case I should die without warning.

n says a baby's bound to. That a father isn't so specially necessary, but you've got to have a Mother. Mine died when I was born. I wonder how that happen

and it's better not to

ings. It was a revelation to the girls, her room was. Not fine, and it didn't cost much, but you felt nicer and kinder the