Poor Bertha was so frightened she didn't remember anything but the clock and a china cat and an easel and picture, and before I could count Mrs.

Reagan came in.

She stopped in the doorway, and had we come from leper-land she couldn't have held herself farther off.

"What are you doing in here?" she asked, and she tried the haughty air--"What are you doing in here?"

"We were waiting for you," I said. "We have a message from Miss Jones."

"Well, another time don't wait in here, and don't come to the front door if you have a message from Miss Jones or Miss Any-body-else. I don't want any pickles this year. Had I wanted any I would have sent her word.

You understand? Don't ever come here again in this way!" And she waved us out as if we were flies.

For a minute I looked at her as if she were a Mrs. Jorley's wax-works, and then I made a bow like I make in charades.

"We understand," I said. "And we will not come again. We've heard a good many people in Yorkburg have been once and no more." And I bowed again and walked past her like she was a stage character, which she was, being a pretence and nothing else.

Mad? I tell you, I was Martha for a week, and then I saw, real sudden, how silly I was to let a bulgarian make me mad.

But if I'm ever expected to love anything like that, it will be expecting too much of Mary Cary, mostly Martha, for 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 make herself. She don't agree with my nature, and if I had a parlor she couldn't come into it either. She could not.

IV

THE STEPPED-ON AND THE STEPPERS

I don't believe I ever have written anything about my first years at this Asylum. I am naturally a wandering person. Well, I was happy. I know I've said that before, but Miss Katherine says that's one of the few things you can say often.

I had a kitten, and a chicken which I killed by mistake. I took it to the pump to wash it, and it lost its breath and died. I still put flowers on the place where its grave was.

It was my first to die. I have lost many others since: a cat, and a rabbit, and a rooster called Napoleon because he was so strutty and domineering to his wives. I didn't put up anything to his grave. I didn't think the hens would like it. They just despised him.

Then there were the remains of Rebecca Baker. She was of rags, with b.u.t.ton eyes and no teeth, just marks for them; but I loved her very much. I kept her as long as there was anything to hold her by; but after legs and arms went, and the back of her head got so thin from lack of sawdust that she had neuralgia all the time, I found her dead one morning, and buried her at once.

I loved Rebecca Baker: not for looks, but for comfort. I could talk to her without fear of her telling. She always knew how hungry I was, and how I hated oatmeal without sugar, and she never talked back.

During the years from three to nine I lived just mechanical, except on the inside. I got up to a bell and cleaned to a bell, and sat down to eat to a bell; rose to a bell, went to school to a bell, came out to a bell, worked to a bell, sewed to a bell, played to a bell, said my prayers to a bell, got in bed to a bell, and the next day and every day did the same thing over to the same old bell.

But when I marry my children's father there are to be no bells in the house we live in. Only b.u.t.tons, with no particular time to be pressed.

We go to church to a bell, too; that, is to Sunday-school. We always go to St. John's Sunday-school--Episcopal. The man who left this place put it in his will that we had to, but we go to all the other churches.

Episcopal the first Sunday, Methodist the second, Presbyterian the third, and Baptist the fourth, and when we get through we begin all over again.

We go to church like we do everything else, two by two. Start at a tap of that same old bell, and march along like wooden figures wound up; and the people who see us don't think we are really truly children or like theirs, except in shape inside. They think we just love our hideous clothes, and that we ought to be thankful for mola.s.ses and bread-and-milk every night in the week but one, and if we're not, we're wicked. Rich people think queer things.

Sundays at the Humane are terribly religious.

They begin early and last until after supper, and if anybody is sorry when Sunday is over, it's never been mentioned out loud. We have prayers and Bible-reading before breakfast every day, but on Sundays longer.

Then we go to Sunday-school, where some of the children stare at us like we were foreign heathen who have come to get saved. Some nudge each other and laugh. But real many are nice and sweet, and I just love that little Minnie Dawes, who sits in front of me. She wears the prettiest hats in Yorkburg, and I get lots of ideas from them. I trim hats in my mind all the time Miss Sallie is talking--Miss Sallie is our teacher.

She is a good lady, Miss Sallie Ray is. Her chief occupation is religion, and as for going to church, it's the true joy of her life.

She's in love with Mr. Benson, the Superintendent, and very regular at all the services. So is he.

But for teaching children Miss Sallie wasn't meant. She really wasn't.

She never surely knows the lesson herself, and it was such fun asking her all sorts of questions just to see her flounder round for answers that I used to pretend I wanted to know a lot of things I didn't. But I don't do that now. It was like punching a lame cat to see it hop, and I stopped.

She don't ask me anything, either. Never has since the day Mr. Benson came in our cla.s.s and asked for a little review, and Martha Cary made trouble, of course.

Miss Sallie was so red and excited by Mr. Benson sitting there beside her that she didn't know what she was doing. She didn't, or she wouldn't have asked me questions, knowing I never say the things I ought. But after a minute she did ask me, fanning just as hard as she could. It was in January.

"Now, Mary Cary, tell us something of the people we have been studying about this winter," she said, "Mention something of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Peter and Paul. Who was Abraham?"

"Abraham was a coward," I said.

"A what?" And her voice was a little shriek. "A what?"

"A coward. He was! He pa.s.sed his wife off for his sister, fearing trouble for himself, and not thinking of consequences for her."

"That will do," she said, and she fanned harder than ever, and looked real frightened at Mr. Benson, who was blowing his nose. "Susie Rice, who was Jacob?"

Susie didn't know. n.o.body knew, so I spoke again.

"Jacob was a rascal. He deceived his father and stole from his brother.

But he prospered and repented, and died prominent."

Mr. Benson got up and said he believed his nose was bleeding, and went out quick, and since then Miss Sallie has never asked me a single question. Not one.

Now I wonder what made Martha speak out like that? Abraham and Jacob were good men who did some bad things, but generally only their goodness is mentioned. While you're living it's apt to be the other way.

But I'm glad the bad is overlooked in time. Maybe that is what G.o.d will do with everybody. He'll wipe out all the wrongness and meanness, and see through it to the good. I hope that's the way it's going to be, for that's my only chance.

Since Miss Sallie stopped asking me anything, and I her, I have a lovely time in my mind taking things off the other children and putting them on the Orphans. There's Margaret Evans. In the winter she's always blue and frozen, and I'd give her that Mallory child's velvet coat and gray m.u.f.f and tippet, and put Margaret's blue cape and calico dress on her.

Poor little Margaret! She's so humble and thankful she gets even less than the rest, it looks like, though I suppose in clothes she has the same allowance, and the difference, maybe, is in herself.

Some people are born to be stepped on, and of steppers there are always a-plenty.

After Sunday-school we walk to the church we're going to, two by two, just alike and all in blue. The minister always mentions us in his prayers, except at St. John's, the prayer-book not providing for Orphans in particular.

When church is over we march home and have dinner, and after dinner we study the lesson for next Sunday and practise hymns until time for the afternoon service. That begins at four, and some of the town ministers preach or talk, generally preach, long and wearisome.

The Episcopal minister gets through in a hurry. We love to have him. He talks so fast we don't half understand, and before we know it he's got his hand up and we hear him saying: "And now to the Father and to the Son--." And the rest is mumbled, but we know he's through and is glad of it, and so are we.

The Presbyterian Sunday is the longest and solemnest, and I always write a new story in my mind when Dr. Moffett preaches. He is very learned, and knows Hebrew and Latin and Greek, but not much about little girls.

Poor Mrs Blamire; she tries to keep awake, but she can't do it; and after the first five minutes she puffs away just as regular as if she were wound up. Once I shut my eyes and tried to puff like her, but I forgot to be careful, and did it so loud the girls came near getting in trouble. Dr. Moffett is deaf, and didn't hear. Miss Bray heard.