Her Ma died when she wuz fourteen, leavin’ two twins jest of a age, three singles, and a Pa with a weak tottlin’ backbone that had to be propped up by somebody, and when Miss Martin laid down the job Marion took it up. She wuz real sweet lookin’, her eyes wuz soft as soft brown velvet, and her hair about the same color, only with a sort of golden light when the sun shone on it, a clear white and pink complexion, a good plump little figger, always dressed in a neat quiet way, and pretty manners, so gentle and lovely that I always felt when I see her like startin’ up that old him:
“Sister thou art mild and lovely,
Gentle as a summer breeze.”
But didn’t always, knowin’ it would make talk. But I had noticed that she begun to look wan and peaked. I knowed that she had a lover, a good actin’ and lookin’ chap, that I liked first rate myself. He had been payin’ attention to her for over two years, and I wondered if the skein of true love that had seemed to run so smooth from the reel of life had got a snarl in it. I mistrusted it had, but wouldn’t say anything to force her confidence, thinkin’ that if she wanted me to know about it she had the use of her tongue, and had always confided in me from the time she used to show me her doll’s broken legs and arms with tears.
Marion wuz well educated and always the most helpful little thing about the house. She wuz one of the wimmen who would make a barn look homelike, a good cook, a real little household fairy, and Laurence Marsh had always seemed to appreciate these qualities in her. Her Pa wuz well to do, so Marion had enough to do with, but the care of the family all come on her, her Pa, the two twins, and three singles makin’ quite a burden for her soft little shoulders to bear. But she seemed to be strengthened for it some way, I guess the Lord helped her. She had jined the church when she wuz fourteen and wuz a Christian, everybody knew. She kep’ the house in perfect order, with the help of one stout German girl, makin’ mistakes at first but gittin’ the better of ’em as time went on, takin’ the best of care of the baby girls, kept an eye on the three unruly boys, kep’ ’em to home nights jest by lovin’ ’em and makin’ home a pleasanter place than they could find anywhere else, injected courage and hope into her Pa’s feeble will in jest the same way by her love and cheerful, patient ways.
She studied music chiefly so the boys could have some one to play for ’em—they had good voices and loved to sing—studied all the health books and books of household science so she could take the right care of her babies, and her home improved every year, so that now, when she wuz nineteen, I told Josiah that Marion Martin wuz jest as perfect as human bein’s can be. You know folks can’t be quite perfect, or else they would flop their wings and fly upwards. And oh, how Marion loved her baby girls, two plump, curly haired little cherubs, and how they loved her, and how her Pa and the boys leaned on her! And I could see, if nobody else could, how her heart wuz sot on Dr. Laurence Marsh, and I didn’t blame her, for he wuz as fine a young chap as there wuz in the country. He wuzn’t dependent on his profession, he had plenty of money of his own, that fell onto him from his Ma. And he’d paid her so much attention that I spozed he would offer her his heart and hand, though I thought mebby he wuz held back by the thought of how necessary she wuz in her own home. But it had come to me, and come straight—Elam Parson’s widder told it to Deacon Bissel’s aunt, and she told it to Betsy Bobbett’s stepdaughter, and she told Tirzah Ann, and she told me; it come straight—that Marion’s Pa had been seen over to Loontown three different times to the Widder Lummises, and I said to myself the Lord had planned to lead Marion out of the kinder stuny path of Duty into the rosy, love-lit path of Happiness, and I felt well over it.
But who can know anything for certain in this oncertain world? One day, when I had just been congratulatin’ myself while I washed my breakfast dishes about the apparently happy future waitin’ my favorite (Miss Bobbett had been in to borry some tea and told me she see the Widder Lummis in the store the day before buyin’ a hull piece of Lonsdale cambric. And I can put two and two together as well as the best. So I wuz washin’ away with a real warm glow of happiness—my dish water wuz pretty hot, but that wuzn’t it entirely), Josiah come in and said he wuz goin’ right by Marion’s on bizness, and I could ride over and stay there whilst he wuz gone. He wanted to go right away, but he wuz belated by the harness breakin’ after we got started, so it wuz after the middle of the forenoon before we got there.
Marion wuz dretful glad to see me and visey versey, yes, indeed! it wuz versey on my part, but I thought she looked wan, wanner than I had ever seen her look. The hired girl had gone home on a visit, and her Pa had took the two little girls and the boys out ridin’, so Marion wuz alone. And as I looked round and see the perfect order and beauty of her home, and my nose took in the odor of the good dinner, started early, so’s to be done good (it wuz a stuffed fowl she wuz roastin’ and cookin’ some vegetables that needed slow cookin’), and as I looked at her, a perfect picture with her satin brown hair, her pretty blue print dress, with white collar and cuffs and white apron with a rose stuck in her belt, I thought to myself the man that gits you will git a prize. But I wuz rousted from my admirin’ thought after I had been there a little while by Marion sayin’ in a pensive way:
“Do you think I could write poetry, Aunt Samantha?”
“Poetry?” sez I. “I d’no whether you could or not.” But as I looked round agin I sez mildly, “Mebby you couldn’t write it, Marion, but you could live it, and you do now in my opinion.”