<h2><SPAN name="II" id="II"></SPAN>II</h2>
<h2>THE COMING OF MISS KATHERINE</h2>
<p>Now, why can't I keep on at a thing
like Miss Katherine? Why? Because
I'm just Mary Cary, mostly Martha;
made of nothing, came from nowhere,
and don't know where I'm going, and
have no more system in my nature
than Miss Bray has charms for gentlemen.</p>
<p>But Miss Katherine—well, there never was
and never will be but one Miss Katherine, and
there's as much chance of my being like her as
there is of my reaching the stars. I'll never
be like her, but she's my friend. That's the
wonderful part of it. She's my friend. And
when you've got a friend like Miss Katherine
you've got strength to do anything. To stand
anything, too.</p>
<p>The beautiful part of it is that I live with
her; that is, she lives in the Asylum, and I
sleep in the room with her.</p>
<p>It happened this way. Last summer I didn't
want to do anything but sit down. It was the
funniest thing, for before that I never did like
to sit down if I could stand up, or skip around,
or climb, or run, or dance, or jump. I never
could walk straight or slow, and I never can
keep step.</p>
<p>Well, last summer I didn't want to move,
and I couldn't eat, and I didn't even feel like
reading. I'd have such queer slipping-away
feelings right in my heart that I'd call myself
a drop of ink on a blotter that was spreading
and spreading and couldn't stop. Sometimes I
would think I was sinking down and down,
but I really wasn't sinking, for I didn't move.
I only felt like I was, and I was afraid to go
to sleep at night for fear I would die, and I
stayed awake so as to know about it if I did.</p>
<p>And then I began to be afraid of dying, and
my heart would beat so I thought it would wear
out. But I didn't tell anybody how I felt. I
was ashamed of being afraid, and I just told
God, because I knew He could understand better
than anybody else; and I asked Him please
to hold on to me, I not being able to do much
holding myself, and He held. I know it, for I
felt it.</p>
<p>You see, Mrs. Blamire—she's Miss Bray's assistant—was
away; Miss Bray was busy getting
ready to go when Mrs. Blamire came back; and
Miss Jones was pickling and preserving. I
didn't want to bother her, so I dragged on, and
kept my feelings to myself.</p>
<p>The girls were awful good to me. Real many
have relations in Yorkburg, and if I'd eaten all
the fruit they sent me I'd been a tutti-frutti;
but I couldn't eat it. And then one day I began
to talk so queer they were frightened, and
told Miss Bray, and she sent for the doctor
quick. That afternoon they took me to the
hospital, and the last thing I saw was little
Josie White crying like her heart would break
with her arms around a tree.</p>
<p>"Please don't die, Mary Cary, please don't
die!" she kept saying over and over, and when
they tried to make her go in she bawled worse
than ever. I tried to wave my hand.</p>
<p>"I'm not going to die, I'm coming back," I
said, and that's all I remember.</p>
<p>I knew they put me in something and drove
off, and then I was in a little white bed in a big
room with a lot of other little beds in it; and
after that I didn't know I was living for three
weeks. But I talked just the same. They told me I
made speeches by the hour, and read books
out loud, and recited poems that had never
been printed. But when I stopped and lay like
the dead, just breathing, the girls say they heard
there were no hopes, and a lot of them just
cried and cried. It was awful nice of them,
and if they hadn't cut my hair off I would have
made a real pretty corpse.</p>
<p>The day I first saw Miss Katherine really
good she was standing by my bed, holding my
wrist in one hand and her watch in another,
and I thought she was an angel and I was in
heaven. She was in white, and I took her
little white cap for a crown, and I said:</p>
<p>"Are you my Mother?"</p>
<p>She nodded and smiled, but she didn't speak,
and I asked again:</p>
<p>"Are you my Mother?"</p>
<p>"Your right-now Mother," she said, and she
smiled so delicious I thought of course I was
in heaven, and I spoke once more.</p>
<p>"Where's God?"</p>
<p>Then she stooped down and kissed me.</p>
<p>"In your heart and mine," she answered.
"But you mustn't talk, not yet. Shut your
eyes, and I will sing you to sleep." And I
shut them. And I knew I was in heaven, for
heaven isn't a place; it's a feeling, and I had it.</p>
<p>And that's how I met Miss Katherine.</p>
<p>Her father and mother are dead, just like mine.
Her father was Judge Trent, and his father
once owned half the houses in Yorkburg, but
lost them some way, and what he didn't lose
Judge Trent did after the war.</p>
<p>When her father died Miss Katherine wouldn't
live with either of her brothers, or any of her
relations, but went to Baltimore to study to be
a nurse. After she graduated she didn't come
back for three or four years, and she hadn't
been back six months when I was taken sick.
And now I sing:</p>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span>"Praise God from whom that sickness flew."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p>Sing it inside almost all the time.</p>
<p>Miss Katherine don't have to be a nurse.
She has a little money. I don't know how
much, she never mentioning money before me;
but she has some, for I heard Miss Bray and
Mrs. Blamire talking one night when they
thought I was asleep; and for once I didn't interrupt
or let them know I was awake.</p>
<p>I had been punished so often for speaking
when I shouldn't that this time I kept quiet,
and when they were through I couldn't sleep.
I was so excited I stayed awake all night. And
from joy—pure joy.</p>
<p>I had only been back from the hospital a
week, and was in the room next to Mrs. Blamire's,
where the children who are sick stay,
when I heard Miss Bray talking to Mrs. Blamire,
and at something she said I sat up in bed.
Right or wrong, I tried to hear. I did.</p>
<p>They were sitting in front of the fire, and
Miss Bray leaned over and cracked the coals.</p>
<p>"Have you heard that Miss Katherine Trent
is coming here as a trained nurse?" she said,
and she put down the poker, and, folding her
arms, began to rock.</p>
<p>"You don't mean it!" said Mrs. Blamire, and
her little voice just cackled. "Coming here?
To this place? I do declare!" And she drew
her chair up closer, being a little deaf.</p>
<p>"That's what she's going to do." Miss Bray
took off her spectacles. "The Board can't
afford to pay her a salary, but she's offered to
come without one, and next week she'll start
in."</p>
<p>"Katherine Trent always was queer," she
went on, still rocking with all her might. "She
can get big prices as a nurse, though she doesn't
have to nurse at all, having money enough to
live on without working. And why she wants
to come to a place like this and fool with fifty-odd
children and get no pay for it is beyond
my understanding. It's her business, however,
not mine, and I'm glad she's coming."</p>
<p>"I do declare!" And Mrs. Blamire clapped
her hands like she was getting religion. "My,
but I'm glad! Miss Katherine Trent coming
here! And next week, you say? I do declare!"
And her gladness sounded in her
voice. It was a different kind from Miss
Bray's. Even in the dark I could tell, for
hers was thankfulness for the children. Miss
Bray was glad for herself.</p>
<p>That was almost a year ago, and now my
hair has come out and curls worse than ever.
It's very thick, and it's brown—light brown.</p>
<p>I'm always intending to stand still in front
of the glass long enough to see what I do look
like, but I'm always in such a hurry I don't
have time. I know my eyes are blue, for Miss
Katherine said this morning they got bigger
and bluer every day, and if I didn't eat more
I'd be nothing but eyes. If you don't like a
thing, can you eat it? You cannot. That is, in
summer you can't. In winter it's a little easier.</p>
<p>I never have understood how Miss Katherine
could have come to an Orphan Asylum to live
and to eat Orphan Asylum meals when she
could have eaten the best in Yorkburg. And
Yorkburg's best is the best on earth. Everybody
says that who's tried other places, even
Miss Webb, who gets right impatient with
Yorkburg's slowness and enjoyment of itself.</p>
<p>And Miss Katherine is living here from pure
choice. That's what she is doing, and she's
made living creatures of us, just like God did
when He breathed on Adam and woke him up.</p>
<p>At the hospital she used to ask me all about
the Asylum, and, never guessing why, I told
her all I knew, except about Miss Bray. Miss
Katherine had known the Asylum all her life,
but had only been in it twice—just passing it
by, not thinking. When I got better and
could talk as much as I pleased, she wanted
to know how many of us there were, what we
did, and how we did it: what we ate, and
what kind of underclothes we wore in winter,
and how many times a week we bathed all
over; when we got up, and what we studied,
and how long we sewed each day, and how long
we played, and when we went to bed—and all
sorts of other things. I wondered why she
wanted to know, and when I found out I could
have laid right down and died from pure gladness.
I didn't, though.</p>
<p>Once I asked her what made her do it, and
she laughed and said because she wanted to, and
that she was much obliged to me for having found
her work for her. But I believe there's some
other reason she won't tell.</p>
<p>And why I believe so is that sometimes, when
she thinks I am asleep, I see her looking in the
fire, and there's something in her face that's
never there at any other time. It's a remembrance.
I guess most hearts have them if they
live long enough. But you'd never think Miss
Katherine had one, she's so glad and cheerful
and busy all the time. I wonder if it's a sweetheart
remembrance? I know three of her
beaux; one in Yorkburg and two from away,
who have been to see her frequent times; but
a beau is different from a sweetheart. I'm sure
that look means something secret, and I bet
it's a man. Who is he? I don't know. I
wish he was dead. I do!</p>
<p>When I first came back from the hospital
my little old sticks of legs wouldn't hold me
up, and down I would go. But I didn't mind
that. I just minded not going to sleep at
night. But sleep wouldn't come, and I'd get
so wide awake trying to make it that I began
to have a teeny bit of fever again, and then it
was Miss Katherine asked if she might take
me in her room. I was nervous and still needed
attention, she said, and—magnificent gloriousness!—I
was sent to her room to stay until perfectly
well, and I'm here yet. Perfectly well
because I am here!</p>
<p>That first night when I got into the little
white bed next to her bed, and knew she was
going to be there beside me, I couldn't go to
sleep right off. I kept wishing I was King
David, so I could write a book of gratitudes
and psalms and praises, and that was the first
night I ever really prayed right. I didn't ask
for a thing except for help to be worth it—the
trouble she was taking for just little me, a
charity child. Just me!</p>
<p>And oh, the difference in her room and the
room I had left! She had had it painted and
papered herself, for it hadn't been used since
kingdom come, and the cobwebs in it would
have filled a barrel. It had been a packing-room,
and when Miss Katherine first saw it
she just whistled soft and easy; but when she
was through, it was just a dream.</p>
<p>It is a big room at the end of the wing, and
it has three windows in it: one in the front and
one in the back and one opposite the door you
come in. And when the paper was put on
you felt like you were in a great big garden of
roses; pink roses, for they were running all
over the walls, and they were so natural I
could smell them. I really could.</p>
<p>Miss Katherine brought her own furniture
and things, and she put a carpet on the floor,
all over, not just strips. And the windows had
muslin curtains at them with cretonne curtains
just full of pink roses, looped back from the
muslin ones; and the couch and the cushions
and some chairs were all covered with the same
kind of pink roses. And as for the bed, it was
too sweet for anybody to lie on—that is, for
anybody but Miss Katherine to lie on.</p>
<p>There was a big closet for her clothes, and
a writing-desk which had been in the family a
hundred years—maybe a thousand. I don't
know. And one side of the room was filled
with books in shelves which old Peter Sands
made and painted white for her. She lets me
look at them as much as I want, and says I can
read as many as I choose when I am old enough
to understand them. She didn't mention any
time to begin trying to understand, and so I
started at once, and I've read about forty
already.</p>
<p>There aren't a great many pictures on Miss
Katherine's walls. Just a few besides the portraits
of her father and mother, oil paintings.
And oh, dear children what are to be, I'm going
to have my picture painted as soon as I marry
your father, so you can know what I looked
like in case I should die without warning. I
want you to have it, knowing so well what it
means to have nothing that belonged to your
mother, I not having anything—not even a
strand of hair or a message.</p>
<p>Sometimes I wonder if I ever really did have
a Mother, or if the doctor just left me somewhere
and nobody wanted me. I must have
had one, for Betty Johnson says a baby's bound
to. That a father isn't so specially necessary,
but you've got to have a Mother. Mine died
when I was born. I wonder how that happened
when there wasn't anybody in all this great
big earth to take care of me except my father,
who didn't know how. He died, too, and then
I was an Orphan.</p>
<p>This is a strange world, and it's better not to
try to understand things.</p>
<p>In the winter time Miss Katherine always
has a beautiful crackling fire in her room, and
some growing flowers and green things. It was
a revelation to the girls, her room was. Not
fine, and it didn't cost much, but you felt nicer
and kinder the minute you went in it. And
it made Mrs. Reagan's grand parlors seem like
shining brass and tinkling cymbals. I wonder
why?</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />