“And they look to see if your ears are clean,” said one little girl.
“And ask if you are good and say your prayers,” said another.
“And of course we say ‘Yes,’” said the big boy, “and then they give us pennies and tell us to save them and we will be rich when we grow up.”
“It’s not true,” said Martha Mary. “You always spend them before you grow up. Things are very expensive! I know!”
Then they remembered the violets, so down the hills and to the road they scampered, Martha Mary at the head of the lot (to be exact, there were six boys and eight girls). Through the gates and up to the house she took them to introduce them to Mother Dear, who was still feeling pretty badly at the way Walter had behaved. When she saw Martha Mary with all her company she dropped her sewing and said:
“What in the world has the child done?”
Martha Mary told her as quickly as she could all about their being orphans and about the violets and the affiliated ladies who gave them pennies to save. Mother Dear’s eyes grew soft in the way they have and she kissed Martha Mary and shook hands with the children, no matter how dirty they were. She told Martha Mary to take them to the violets by the lake and not let them fall in, for some of them were quite small and liable to. Martha Mary promised, then called Edward Lee and John and they brought along Walter, who was now in a sensible frame of mind. John was inclined to be standoffish until Martha Mary, who knew him like a book, told him that the biggest little boy liked men better than women, and then John became quite nice.
In a little while Martha Mary had learned the names of all the orphans, and I’ll tell them to you, although you’ll no doubt forget.
First there was the biggest little boy; he was called “Slats,” because he was thin. The Home name for him was Thomas Dorne. Then there was the biggest little girl, Helen Dolittle, and then Reddy Smith and Sammy O’Reilly and Sue Patience Grey and John Shaw and Margaret something—her parents had died before she was able to find out what the last name was—and Pansy and Amy Rebecca Isaacs and Skinny Dawson and Patrick O’Harahan, and finally the most adorable little golden-haired girl I have ever seen and her name was awful. It was Dolcerina Vennicci, but they called her “Piffy.”
Away went the eighteen children to the edge of the lake, where there were so many violets under the green leaves that everyone fell to picking and became too busy to talk. After a while, when hats and arms and aprons were full of flowers, Martha Mary said: