Mary Cary: "Frequently Martha"

by Kate Langley Bosher

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 button 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 buttons, 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 molasses 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.