Mary Cary Part 7

Why was such a trip e'er started On a pathway all uncharted?

Why from loved ones was I parted?

Who will answer? Who?

3

None will answer. So I'll see What there is on this journey (journee) That will bring good-luck to me-- I'll look out and see!

I hope Minnie isn't going to be sick long. She is the first girl to be really ill since Miss Katherine came. It makes you feel so queer in the throat to know somebody is truly sick.

A lot of the girls have been sick a little with colds and small and unserious diseases in the past year. But Miss Katherine says it's her business to keep us well, not just get us well after we're sick, and she's certainly done it. We've been weller than we ever were in our lives, and no medicine taken. Just plain common-sense regulations.

I wonder what's the matter with Minnie? The doctor hasn't said, but Miss Katherine is uneasy, and she won't let anybody come in the room. She hasn't been out herself since yesterday.

My, but we've had a time lately!

We've been fumigated and sterilized and fertilized so much that we are better prepared for the happy-land than we ever were before. But the danger of anybody going to it right away is over.

Minnie Peters has had scarlet fever, and the commotion made her real famous.

Miss Katherine knew it from the first, but Dr. Rudd wouldn't believe it until he had to, and Yorkburg got so excited it hasn't talked of anything else for weeks.

Minnie was awful ill. Two days and two nights they didn't think she would live, and for three weeks Miss Katherine didn't leave the room. If it hadn't been for her Minnie would be dead.

Miss Katherine's room has been closed since they first found out it was really scarlet fever Minnie had, and I have been in No. 4 again. She is going away to spend a week with Miss Webb. Going to-morrow.

I am so glad she is going. All of us are glad, for she has had to do something which shows whether you are a Christ-kind Christian or the usual kind, and she is tired out. She won't admit it, though, and laughs and kisses her hand over the banister, which is all the closer we have seen her yet.

Miss Bray was scared to death. She didn't offer to share the nursing, but she made excuses a-plenty for not doing it. Miss Bray is a church Christian. You couldn't make her miss going to church. She thinks she'd have bad luck if she did.

VIII

MARY CARY'S BUSINESS

This is a busy time of the year, and things are moving. I'm in business.

The Apple and Entertainment business.

The reason I went in business was to make money, and the money was to buy Christmas presents with.

I didn't have a cent. Not one. Christmas was coming. Money wasn't. And what's the use of Christmas if you can't give something to somebody?

Religion is the only thing I know of that you can get without money and without price, and even that you can't keep without both. Not being suitable to the season, I couldn't give that away, even if I had it to spare, and wondering what to do almost made me sick.

I thought and thought until my brain curdled. I looked over everything I had to see if there was a thing I could sell. There wasn't. I couldn't tell Miss Katherine, knowing she'd fix up some way to give me some and pretend I was earning it; and then, one day, when she was out, I locked myself in her room, and Martha gave Mary such a spanking talk that Mary moved.

Everything Martha had suggested before, Mary had some excuse for not doing. Mary is lazy at times, and, as for pride, she's full of it.

Martha generally gives the trouble, but Mary needs plain truth every now and then, and that day she got it. When the talk was over, there was a plan settled on, and the plan was this.

Each day in December we have an apple for dinner. Mr. Riley sends us several barrels every winter, and, as they won't keep, we have one apiece until they're gone.

We don't have to eat them at the table, and when Martha told Mary you could do anything you wanted if you wanted to hard enough--except raise the dead, of course--the idea came that I could sell my apple. And right away came the thought of the boy I could sell it to. John Maxwell is his name.

He goes to our Sunday-school and is fifteen, and croaks like a bull-frog. Ugly? Pug-dog ugly; but he's awful nice, and for a boy has real much sense.

His father owns the shoe-factory, and has plenty of money. I know, for he told me he had five cents every day to get something for lunch, and fifty cents a week to do anything he wants with. His mother gives it to him.

Well, the next Sunday he came over to talk, like he always does after Sunday-school is out, and I said, real quick, Mary giving signs of silliness:

"I'm in business. Did you know it?"

"No," he said. "What kind? Want a partner?"

"I don't. I want customers. I'm in the Apple business. I have an apple every day. It's for sale. Want to buy it?"

"What's the price?" Then he laughed. "I'm from New Jersey. What's it worth?"

"It's worth a cent. As you're from New Jersey, I charge you two. Take it?"

"I do." And he started to hand the money out.

But I told him I didn't want pay in advance. And then we talked over how the apple could be put where he could get it, and the money where I could. We decided on a certain hole in the Asylum fence John knew about, and every evening that week I put my apple there and found his two pennies. On Sat.u.r.day night I had fourteen cents. Wasn't that grand?

Fourteen cents!

But the next Sunday there came near being trouble. Roper Gordon--he's John Maxwell's cousin--had heard about the apple selling. He told me I wasn't charging enough, and that he'd pay three cents for it.

"I'll be dogged if you will," said John. "I'm cornering that apple, and I'll meet you. I'll give four."

"All right," I said. "I'm in business to make money. I'm not charging for worth, but for want. The one who wants it most will pay most. It can go at four."

"No, it can't!" said Roper. His father is rich, too. He's the Vice-President of the Factory, and Roper puts on lots of airs. He thinks money can do anything.

"I'll give five. Apples in small lots come high, and selected ones higher. John is a close buyer, and isn't toting square."

"That's a lie!" said John, and he lit out with his right arm and gave Roper such a blow that my heart popped right out on my tongue and sat there. Scared? I was weak as a dead cat.

But I grabbed John and pulled him behind me before Roper could hit back, and then in some way they got outside, and I heard afterward John beat Roper to a jelly.

I don't blame him. If any one were to say I wasn't square, I'd fight, too.

When you don't fight, it's because what is said is true, and you're afraid it will be found out. And a coward. Good Lord!

Anyhow, after that I got five cents a day for my apple. John put six cents in, raising Roper, he said, but I wouldn't keep but five.