“Mary!” she called. “Mary, come here, dear.”
Our Mary came out of her mother’s bedroom with a handful of letters in her hand.
“Tell your father our little secret,” said her mother. “This is a time he wants cheering.”
“I’m earning money,” said our Mary sweetly and with such a happy face.
Mr. Martin’s face lighted up. He was very, very fond of his only child, but we all knew that he was sorry she could not do things that other girls did. “You do not need to do that, child,” he said.
“Out of my birds,” she said with a gay laugh, “those birds that you so kindly provide for, but which I know are a great expense to you in these hard times.”
“Oh, do hurry and tell him, child,” said Mrs. Martin, who was often, in spite of her age and size, just like a girl herself. “Henry, she is earning forty dollars a week by her bird study articles. You know that many people are trying
to understand the hidden life of birds and beasts, and Mary is on the track of some wonderful discoveries.”
“Aided a good deal by her mother,” said Mary. “It is really a partnership affair, my father, but I want you to know, because I have thought that perhaps you thought and perhaps our friends thought I ought to give up my birds since times are bearing so heavily on us.”
“But,” said Mrs. Martin triumphantly, “instead of being a burden, the child is earning money, and she is also doing something patriotic in starting a new breed of canary.”