III

MARY, FREQUENTLY MARTHA

I am going to write a history of my life.  The things that happen in this place are the same things, just like our breakfasts, dinners, and suppers.  They wouldn’t be interesting to hear about, so while waiting for something real exciting to put down, I am going to write my history.

I don’t know very much about who I am.  I wish my Mother had left a diary about herself, but she didn’t.  Nobody, not even Miss Katherine, will tell me who I was before I came here, which I did when I was three.  I know my nurse brought me, but I can’t remember what she looked like, and when she went away without me:  I never saw nor heard of her again.  I don’t even know her name.  I thought it was fine to play in a big yard with a lot of children, and I soon stopped crying for my nurse.

I never did see much sense in crying.  Everybody was good to me, and not being old enough to know I was a Charity child, and by nature happy, they used to call me Cricket.  Sometimes some of them call me that now.

A hundred dozen times I have asked Miss Katherine to tell me something about myself, but in some way she always gets out of it.  I know my mother and father are dead, but that’s all I do know; and I wouldn’t ask Miss Bray if I had to stand alone for ever and ever.

Sometimes I believe Miss Katherine knows something she won’t tell me, but since I found out she don’t like me to ask her I’ve stopped.  And not being able to ask out what I’d like, I think a lot more, and some nights when I can’t go to sleep, it gives me an awful sinking feeling right down in my stomach, to think in all this great big world there isn’t a human that’s any kin to me.

I might have come from the heavens above or the depths below, only I didn’t, and being like other girls in size and shape and feelings, I know I once did have a Mother and Father.  But if they had relations they’ve kept quiet, and it’s plain they don’t want to know anything about me, never having asked.

It would make me miserable—­this aloneness would, if I let it.  I won’t let it.  I have got to look out for Mary Cary, frequently Martha, and when you’re miserable you don’t get much of anything that’s going around.  I won’t be unhappy.  I just won’t.  I haven’t enough other blessings.

But not being able to speak out as much as I would like on some things personal, I got into the habit of talking to my other self, which I named Martha, and which I call my secret sister.  Martha is my every-day self, like the Bible Martha who did things, and didn’t worry trying to find out what couldn’t be found out, specially about why God lets Mothers die.

Mary is my Sunday self who wonders and wonders at everything and asks a million questions inside, and goes along and lets people think she is truly Martha when she knows all the time she isn’t.  And if I do hold out and write a history of my life, it’s going to be a Martha and Mary history; for some days I’m one, some another, and whichever I happen to be is plain to be seen.