Mary Cary / Frequently Martha""

ngs, just like our breakfasts, dinners, and suppers. They wouldn't be interesting to hear abo

fore I came here, which I did when I was three. I know my nurse brought me, but I can't remember what she looked like, and when she went away without me: I never

t being old enough to know I was a Charity child, and by nature happy,

t in some way she always gets out of it. I know my mother and father are dead, but that

topped. And not being able to ask out what I'd like, I think a lot more, and some nights when I can't go to sleep, it gives me

ls in size and shape and feelings, I know I once did have a Mother and Father. But if they had relati

ook out for Mary Cary, frequently Martha, and when you're miserable you don't get much of any

ther self, which I named Martha, and which I call my secret sister. Martha is my every-day self, like the Bible Martha w

ple think she is truly Martha when she knows all the time she isn't. And if I do hold out and write a history of my life, it'

enty bath-rooms in it. And I'm going to have horses and automobiles and a private car and balloons, if they are working all

with fifty-eight more just like me. Blue calico, white dots for winter, white calico, blue dots for summer. Black sailor hats and white

alone as much as possible. But I am going to be rich some day. I am. And when I come back to Yorkburg eyes will bulge, for the clothes I am going to wear wil

children's mother. They are to know all about me I can tell, which won't be much or distinguished, but what there

irthday parties. The Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum is a large house with a wide hall in the mi

ldren and the chickens use the grounds at the back; the front has grass and flowers, and is for company, which is seldom. Sometimes, just

icer than unforbidden. I love

ng farther on. The dining-room is in the basement, half below the ground, and on cloudy days the lamps have to be lighted-that is, they

yellow-brown grass, and, though hideous, it's a great comfort. That

er as our meals. As for our days, if it wasn't for calendars we wouldn't know one from

.25 we rise at the tap of Miss Bray's bell, and those who have more cleaning up-stairs march out; those who clear the table and wash the dishes s

trother. She's a good teacher. The older girls hel

enough to run it, and it hasn't had any paint or improvements in the memory of man, e

ake the children much nicer. They just naturally don't like to wash, a

ever thought of putting them in. Mr. Loyall, he's the mayor, says everybody has gotten on very well for over two hundred years without them, and

came from New Jersey, and they wanted light, and got it. And Yorkburg was so pleased that it move

nter we children used to play we were arctic explorers and would search for icebergs. The North Pole was the

to the Galt House-that's the Home for Poor and Proud Ladies-and ask for Mrs. Reagan, who was to be in it in the third floor b

ack, and it's got three bath-rooms, and a big tank in the back yard. And it has velvet c

therine said was the most impossible of all, and Miss Webb said it was desecrating for such a stately old

t a message to her one day by Bertha Reed and me about some pickles. Bertha is awful timid, and sh

"I know who I am, and something inside of me tells me where to go." A

and looked at us as if weary a

Reagan in

e i

e waited. I waited. T

ary would like to see her, having a message from Miss Jone

if that fool man was rude; so while he was gone to get Mrs. Reagan I counted everything

hree stools and seventeen candlesticks and four pedestals with statuary on them, some broken, all naked; and seven palms and twenty-three pictures and t

ering at observation parties, in case I ever got a chance to see

thing but the clock and a china cat and an easel and

d we come from leper-land she coul

asked, and she tried the haughty

u," I said. "We have a

Jones or Miss Any-body-else. I don't want any pickles this year. Had I wanted any I would have sent her

were a Mrs. Jorley's wax-works, and the

ple in Yorkburg have been once and no more." And I bowed again and walked past he

k, and then I saw, real sudden, how sil

or she isn't an enemy. She's just a make-believe of something she wasn't born into being and don't know how to ma