“Please, what?” asked Martha Mary.
“We are hunting for wild violets and there don’t seem to be any. Do you know where they grow?”
Of course Martha Mary knew. There were oodles and oodles of them on the Sherman Place, just at the edge of the lake Ocean. She thought it would be lovely to bring all of the children home to pick them and perhaps, if there was enough, to have tea.
“Wouldn’t your Mother care?” asked the big boy. “Or are you like us? Haven’t you one?”
Martha Mary could hardly believe her ears. “Haven’t any of you mothers?” she asked.
“Nope,” said the boy. “Nor fathers, either.”
“How awful!” said Martha Mary. “Where do you live? Who takes care of you?”
“We live at the Charity,” said the boy. “We take care of ourselves, excepting at meal-time or lessons.”
“How nice!” said Martha Mary. “Can anyone live there?”
“Yes,” said the boy, “if you are an orphan. But it’s not nice. No one takes an interest or anything in you. The only excitement is when ladies with eyeglasses on sticks come from the Affiliated Charities to pat you on the head and say, ‘Dear little shaver,’ and make you want to run away.”