Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle LenaStein, Gertrude
General
Three Lives: Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena
Stein, Gertrude
Working class women -- Fiction
If it had not been that it was evening, and so dark, and that this
house had trees all round about, and that Anna found herself going in
and coming out just as the woman that day said that she would do, had
it not all been just as the medium said, the good Anna would never
have taken the place with Miss Mathilda.
Anna did not see Miss Mathilda and she did not like the friend who
acted in her place.
This friend was a dark, sweet, gentle little mother woman, very easy
to be pleased in her own work and very good to servants, but she felt
that acting for her young friend, the careless Miss Mathilda, she must
be very careful to examine well and see that all was right and that
Anna would surely do the best she knew. She asked Anna all about her
ways and her intentions and how much she would spend, and how often
she went out and whether she could wash and cook and sew.
The good Anna set her teeth fast to endure and would hardly answer
anything at all. Mrs. Lehntman made it all go fairly well.
The good Anna was all worked up with her resentment, and Miss
Mathilda's friend did not think that she would do.
However, Miss Mathilda was willing to begin and as for Anna, she knew
that the medium said it must be so. Mrs. Lehntman, too, was sure, and
said she knew that this was the best thing for Anna now to do. So Anna
sent word at last to Miss Mathilda, that if she wanted her, she would
try if it would do.
So Anna began a new life taking care of Miss Mathilda.
Anna fixed up the little red brick house where Miss Mathilda was going
to live and made it very pleasant, clean and nice. She brought over
her dog, Baby, and her parrot. She hired Lizzie for a second girl to
be with her and soon they were all content. All except the parrot, for
Miss Mathilda did not like its scream. Baby was all right but not the
parrot. But then Anna never really loved the parrot, and so she gave
it to the Drehten girls to keep.
Before Anna could really rest content with Miss Mathilda, she had to
tell her good german priest what it was that she had done, and how
very bad it was that she had been and how she would never do so again.
Anna really did believe with all her might. It was her fortune never
to live with people who had any faith, but then that never worried
Anna. She prayed for them always as she should, and she was very sure
that they were good. The doctor loved to tease her with his doubts and
Miss Mathilda liked to do so too, but with the tolerant spirit of her
church, Anna never thought that such things were bad for them to do.
Anna found it hard to always know just why it was that things went
wrong. Sometimes her glasses broke and then she knew that she had not
done her duty by the church, just in the way that she should do.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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