Mary Cary: "Frequently Martha"Bosher, Kate Langley
General
Mary Cary: "Frequently Martha"
Bosher, Kate Langley
Children -- Juvenile fiction; Orphans -- Juvenile fiction
I am back in No. 4, in one of the thirteen beds. My body goes on doing
the same things. Gets up at five o'clock. Dresses, cleans, prays, eats,
goes to school, eats, sews, plays, eats, studies, goes to bed. And
that's got to be done every day in the same way it was done the day
before.
But it's just my body that does them. Outside I am a little machine
wound up; inside I am a thousand miles away, and doing a thousand other
things. Some day I am going to blow up and break my inside workings, for
I wasn't meant to run regular and on time. I wasn't.
What was I meant for? I don't know. But not to be tied to a rope. And
that's what I am. Tied to a rope. If I were a boy I'd cut it.
* * * * *
I am almost crazy! A wonderful thing has happened. I am so excited my
breathing is as bad as old Miss Betsy Hays's. I believe I know who I am.
My heart is jumping and thumping and carrying on so that it makes my
teeth chatter; and as I can't tell anybody what I've heard, I am likely
to die from keeping it to myself.
I am _not_ going to die until I find out. If I did I would be as bad off
in heaven as on earth. Even an angel would prefer to know something
about itself.
I'm like Miss Bray now. I'm counting on going to heaven. Otherwise it
wouldn't make any difference who I was, as one more misery don't matter
when you're swamped in miserableness. I suppose that's what hell is:
Miserableness.
What are you when you don't go to heaven?
But that's got nothing to do with how I found out who I am. It's like
Martha, though: always butting in with questions no Mary on earth could
answer.
Well, the way I found out was one of those mysterious ways in which God
works his wonders. Yesterday afternoon I asked Miss Bray if I could go
over and play with the Moon children, three of whom are sick, and she
said I might. We were in the nursery, which is next to Mrs. Moon's
bedroom, and she and the lady from Michigan, who is visiting her, were
talking and paying no attention to us. Presently something the lady
said--her name is Mrs. Grey--made everything in me stop working, and my
heart gave a little click like a clock when the pendulum don't swing
right.
She was sitting with her back to the door, which was open, and I could
see her, but she couldn't see me. All of a sudden she put down her
sewing and looked at Mrs. Moon as if something had just come to her.
"Elizabeth Moon, I believe I know that child's uncle," she said. "Ever
since you told me about her something has been bothering me. Didn't you
say her mother had a brother who years ago went West?"
"Hush," said Mrs. Moon, and she nodded toward me. "She'll hear you, and
the ladies wouldn't like it."
She lowered her voice so I couldn't hear all she said, but I heard
something about its being the only thing Yorkburg ever did keep quiet
about. And only then because everybody felt so sorry for her. In a flash
I knew they were talking about me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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