I don’t, though, for she would tell me pretty quick to get up.  She doesn’t like things like that, and, of course, it would look queer.

But I don’t know anybody who isn’t queer about something.  Either stupid queer, or silly queer, or smart queer, or beautiful queer, or religious queer, or selfish queer, or some other kind.

Miss Bray is the Queen of Queers.

But Miss Katherine is queer, too.  If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t stay at this Orphan Asylum, just to help us children, and doing it as cheerfully as if she were happier here than she would be anywhere else.  If her staying isn’t queerness, beautiful queerness, what is it?

I don’t understand it, and I don’t believe I ever will understand how any one who can get ice-cream will take prunes.

But Miss Katherine has got a way of seeing the funny side of things, and sometimes I can’t tell whether she minds prunes and pruny things or not.

I’m sure she does, but she says, when you can’t change a thing, don’t let it change you, and that an inward disposition is hard on other people.

I don’t know what that means, but I think it’s the same as saying there’s no use in always chewing the rag.  Martha is right much inclined to be a chewer.

Miss Webb is, too.  She is Miss Katherine’s best friend, and I just love to hear her talk.

She always comes once a week, often twice, to spend the evening at the Asylum with Miss Katherine, and sometimes when they think I’m asleep, I’m not.  I’d be a nuisance if I kept popping up and saying, “I’m not asleep, speak low.”  So when I can’t, really can’t, sleep, though I do try, I hear them talking, and the things Miss Webb says are a great relief to my feelings.

She doesn’t come to supper, orphan-asylum suppers being refreshments to stay from, not come to, but nearly always they make something on a chafing-dish.  Something that’s good, painful good.

Miss Webb says Miss Katherine’s stomach has some rights, which is true; and when they begin to cook, I just sleep away, breathing regular and easy, so they won’t know I am awake, for fear they might think I am not asleep on purpose.

But I have to hold on to the bed and stuff my ears and nose so as not to hear and smell, for I am that hungry I could eat horse if it had Worcestershire sauce on it.  And that is what they put in their things, which shows that in eating, even, Miss Katherine preaches sense and practises taste.

Miss Webb just laughs at theories, and brings all sorts of good things with her.  She says doctors have wronged more stomachs than they’ve ever righted by all this dieting business, and, while there’s sense in some of it, there’s more nonsense; and as for her, she don’t believe in it.  I don’t know anything about it; but I don’t, either.

They always save me some of whatever they make, which I get the next day.  But if I could rise out of bed and eat as much as I want out of that chafing-dish, there would be a funeral Miss Bray would like to attend.  The corpse would be Mary Cary, died Martha.