Mary Cary: "Frequently Martha"

NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
Published By Arrangement With Harper & Brothers
COPYRIGHT, 1910 BY HARPER & BROTHERS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THEY DIDN'T MEET AT ALL LIKE I EXPECTED
y name is Mary Cary. I live in the Yorkburg Female Orphan Asylum. You may think nothing happens in an Orphan Asylum. It does. The orphans are sure enough children, and real much like the kind that have Mothers and Fathers; but though they don't give parties or wear truly Paris clothes, things happen, and that's why I am going to write this story.
To-day I was kept in. Yesterday, too. I don't mind, for I would rather watch the lightning up here than be down in the basement with the others. There are days when I love thunder and lightning. I can't flash and crash, being just Mary Cary; but I'd like to, and when it is done for me it is a relief to my feelings.
The reason I was kept in was this. Yesterday Mr. Gaffney, the one with a sunk eye and cold in his head perpetual, came to talk to us for the benefit of our characters. He thinks it's his duty, and, just naturally loving to talk, he wears us out once a week anyhow. Yesterday, not agreeing with what he said, I wouldn't pretend I did, and I was punished prompt, of course.
I don't care for duty-doers, and I tried not to listen to him; but tiresome talk is hard not to hear—it makes you so mad. Hear him I did, and when, after he had ambled on until I thought he really was castor-oil and I had swallowed him, he blew his nose and said:
You have much, my children, to be thankful for, and for everything you should be thankful. Are you? If so, stand up. Rise, and stand upon your feet.
I didn't rise. All the others did—stood on their feet, just like he asked. None tried their heads. I was the only one that sat, and when he saw me, his sunk eye almost rolled out, and his good eye stared at me in such astonishment that I laughed out loud. I couldn't help it, I truly couldn't.