Mary Cary: "Frequently Martha"Bosher, Kate Langley
General
Mary Cary: "Frequently Martha"
Bosher, Kate Langley
Children -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction
Sometimes I believe Miss Katherine knows something she won't tell me,
but since I found out she don't like me to ask her I've stopped. 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 an awful sinking feeling right
down in my stomach, to think in all this great big world there isn't a
human that's any kin to me.
I might have come from the heavens above or the depths below, only I
didn't, and being like other girls in size and shape and feelings, I
know I once did have a Mother and Father. But if they had relations
they've kept quiet, and it's plain they don't want to know anything
about me, never having asked.
It would make me miserable--this aloneness would, if I let it. I won't
let it. I have got to look out for Mary Cary, frequently Martha, and
when you're miserable you don't get much of anything that's going
around. I won't be unhappy. I just won't. I haven't enough other
blessings.
But not being able to speak out as much as I would like on some things
personal, I got into the habit of talking to my other self, which I
named Martha, and which I call my secret sister. Martha is my every-day
self, like the Bible Martha who did things, and didn't worry trying to
find out what couldn't be found out, specially about why God lets
Mothers die.
Mary is my Sunday self who wonders and wonders at everything and asks a
million questions inside, and goes along and lets people 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's going to be a Martha and Mary
history; for some days I'm one, some another, and whichever I happen to
be is plain to be seen.
When I grow up I am going to marry a million-dollar man, so I can travel
around the world and have a house in Paris with twenty bath-rooms in
it. And I'm going to have horses and automobiles and a private car and
balloons, if they are working all right by that time. I hope they will
be, for I want something in which I can soar up and sit and look down on
other people.
All my life people have looked down on me, passing me by like I was a
Juny bug or a caterpillar, and I don't wonder. I'm merely Mary Cary with
fifty-eight more just like me. Blue calico, white dots for winter, white
calico, blue dots for summer. Black sailor hats and white sailor hats
with blue capes for cold weather, and no fire to dress by, and freezing
fingers when it's cold, and no ice-water when it's hot.
Yes, dear Mary, you and I are going to marry a rich man. (Martha is
writing to-day.) I will try to love him, but if I can't I will be polite
to him and travel 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 will make mouths water, they're going to
be so grand. Miss Katherine would be ashamed of that and make me
ashamed, but this writing is for the relief of feelings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account