Mary Marie Part 2

sorry for her. She didn't know a thing of what was wanted of her, an'

she was so glad an' happy to come. You see, she _was_ lonesome, I suppose.

"'Me? Want me?--Mother Anderson?' she cried. 'Oh, I'm so glad!' Then she made it worse by runnin' up the stairs an' bouncin' into the room like a rubber ball, an' cryin': 'Now, what shall I do, read to you, or sing to you, or shall we play games? I'd _love_ to do any of them!'

Just like that, she said it. I heard her. Then I went out, of course, an' left them. But I heard 'most everything that was said, just the same, for I was right in the next room dustin', and the door wasn't quite shut.

"First your grandmother said real polite--she was always polite--but in a cold little voice that made even me s.h.i.+ver in the other room, that she did not desire to be read to or sung to, and that she did not wish to play games. She had called her daughter-in-law in to have a serious talk with her. Then she told her, still very polite, that she was noisy an' childish, an' undignified, an' that it was not only silly, but very wrong for her to expect to have her husband's entire attention; that he had his own work, an' it was a very important one.

He was going to be president of the college some day, like his father before him; an' it was her place to help him in every way she could--help him to be popular an' well-liked by all the college people an' students; an' he couldn't be that if she insisted all the time on keepin' him to herself, or lookin' sour an' cross if she couldn't have him.

"Of course that ain't all she said; but I remember this part particular on account of what happened afterward. You see--your ma--she felt awful bad. She cried a little, an' sighed a lot, an' said she'd try, she really would try to help her husband in every way she could; an' she wouldn't ask him another once, not once, to stay with her. An' she wouldn't look sour an' cross, either. She'd promise she wouldn't. An' she'd try, she'd try, oh, so hard, to be proper an'

dignified.

"She got up then an' went out of the room so quiet an' still you wouldn't know she was movin'. But I heard her up in her room cryin'

half an hour later, when I stopped a minute at her door to see if she was there. An' she was.

"But she wasn't cryin' by night. Not much she was! She'd washed her face an' dressed herself up as pretty as could be, an' she never so much as looked as if she wanted her husband to stay with her, when he said right after supper that he guessed he'd go out to the observatory. An' 't was that way right along after that. I know, 'cause I watched. You see, I knew what she'd _said_ she'd do. Well, she did it.

"Then, pretty quick after that, she began to get acquainted in the town. Folks called, an' there was parties an' receptions where she met folks, an' they began to come here to the house, 'specially them students, an' two or three of them young, unmarried professors. An'

she began to go out a lot with them--skatin' an' sleigh-ridin' an'

snowshoein'.

"Like it? Of course she liked it! Who wouldn't? Why, child, you never saw such a fuss as they made over your ma in them days. She was all the rage; an' of course she liked it. What woman wouldn't, that was gay an' lively an' young, an' had been so lonesome like your ma had?

But some other folks didn't like it. An' your pa was one of them. This time 't was him that made the trouble. I know, 'cause I heard what he said one day to her in the library.

"Yes, I guess I was in the next room that day, too--er--dustin', probably. Anyway, I heard him tell your ma good an' plain what he thought of her gallivantin' 'round from mornin' till night with them young students an' professors, an' havin' them here, too, such a lot, till the house was fairly overrun with them. He said he was shocked an' scandalized, an' didn't she have any regard for _his_ honor an'

decency, if she didn't for herself! An', oh, a whole lot more.

"Cry? No, your ma didn't cry this time. I met her in the hall right after they got through talkin', an' she was white as a sheet, an' her eyes was like two blazin' stars. So I know how she must have looked while she was in the library. An' I must say she give it to him good an' plain, straight from the shoulder. She told him _she_ was shocked an' scandalized that he could talk to his wife like that; an' didn't he have any more regard for _her_ honor and decency than to accuse her of runnin' after any man living--much less a dozen of them! An' then she told him a lot of what his mother had said to her, an' she said she had been merely tryin' to carry out those instructions. She was tryin' to make her husband and her husband's wife an' her husband's home popular with the college folks, so she could help him to be president, if he wanted to be. But he answered back, cold an' chilly, that he thanked her, of course, but he didn't care for any more of that kind of a.s.sistance; an' if she would give a little more time to her home an' her housekeepin', as she ought to, he would be considerably better pleased. An' she said, very well, she would see that he had no further cause to complain. An' the next minute I met her in the hall, as I just said, her head high an' her eyes blazin'.

"An' things did change then, a lot, I'll own. Right away she began to refuse to go out with the students an' young professors, an' she sent down word she wasn't to home when they called. And pretty quick, of course, they stopped comin'.

"Housekeepin'? Attend to that? Well, y-yes, she did try to at first, a little; but of course your grandma had always given the orders--through me, I mean; an' there really wasn't anything your ma could do. An' I told her so, plain. Her ways were new an' different an' queer, an' we liked ours better, anyway. So she didn't bother us much that way very long. Besides, she wasn't feelin' very well, anyway, an' for the next few months she stayed in her room a lot, an'

we didn't see much of her. Then by an' by _you_ came, an'--well, I guess that's all--too much, you little chatterbox!"

CHAPTER III

THE BREAK IS MADE

And that's the way Nurse Sarah finished her story, only she shrugged her shoulders again, and looked back, first one way, then another. As for her calling me "chatterbox"--she always calls me that when _she's_ been doing all the talking.

As near as I can remember, I have told Nurse Sarah's story exactly as she told it to me, in her own words. But of course I know I didn't get it right all the time, and I know I've left out quite a lot. But, anyway, it's told a whole lot more than _I_ could have told why they got married in the first place, and it brings my story right up to the point where I was born; and I've already told about naming me, and what a time they had over that.

Of course what's happened since, up to now, I don't know _all_ about, for I was only a child for the first few years. Now I'm almost a young lady, "standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet."

(I read that last night. I think it's perfectly beautiful. So kind of sad and sweet. It makes me want to cry every time I think of it.) But even if I don't know all of what's happened since I was born, I know a good deal, for I've seen quite a lot, and I've made Nurse tell me a lot more.

I know that ever since I can remember I've had to keep as still as a mouse the minute Father comes into the house; and I know that I never could imagine the kind of a mother that Nurse tells about, if it wasn't that sometimes when Father has gone off on a trip, Mother and I have romped all over the house, and had the most beautiful time.

I know that Father says that Mother is always trying to make me a "Marie," and nothing else; and that Mother says she knows Father'll never be happy until he's made me into a stupid little "Mary," with never an atom of life of my own. And, do you know? it does seem sometimes, as if Mary and Marie were fighting inside of me, and I wonder which is going to beat. Funny, isn't it?

Father is president of the college now, and I don't know how many stars and comets and things he's discovered since the night the star and I were born together. But I know he's very famous, and that he's written up in the papers and magazines, and is in the big fat red "Who's Who" in the library, and has lots of noted men come to see him.

Nurse says that Grandma Anderson died very soon after I was born, but that it didn't make any particular difference in the housekeeping; for things went right on just as they had done, with her giving the orders as before; that she'd given them all alone anyway, mostly, the last year Grandma Anderson lived, and she knew just how Father liked things. She said Mother tried once or twice to take the reins herself, and once Nurse let her, just to see what would happen. But things got in an awful muddle right away, so that even Father noticed it and said things. After that Mother never tried again, I guess. Anyhow, she's never tried it since I can remember. She's always stayed most of the time up in her rooms in the east wing, except during meals, or when she went out with me, or went to the things she and Father had to go to together. For they did go to lots of things, Nurse says.

It seems that for a long time they didn't want folks to know there was going to be a divorce. So before folks they tried to be just as usual.

But Nurse Sarah said _she_ knew there was going to be one long ago.

The first I ever heard of it was Nurse telling Nora, the girl we had in the kitchen then; and the minute I got a chance I asked Nurse what it was--a divorce.

My, I can remember now how scared she looked, and how she clapped her hand over my mouth. She wouldn't tell me--not a word. And that's the first time I ever saw her give that quick little look over each shoulder. She's done it lots of times since.

As I said, she wouldn't tell me, so I had to ask some one else. I wasn't going to let it go by and not find out--not when Nurse Sarah looked so scared, and when it was something my father and mother were going to have some day.

I didn't like to ask Mother. Some way, I had a feeling, from the way Nurse Sarah looked, that it was something Mother wasn't going to like.

And I thought if maybe she didn't know yet she was going to have it, that certainly _I_ didn't want to be the one to tell her. So I didn't ask Mother what a divorce was.

I didn't even think of asking Father, of course. I never ask Father questions. Nurse says I did ask him once why he didn't love me like other papas loved their little girls. But I was very little then, and I don't remember it at all. But Nurse said Father didn't like it very well, and maybe I _did_ remember that part, without really knowing it.

Anyhow, I never think of asking Father questions.

I asked the doctor first. I thought maybe 't was some kind of a disease, and if he knew it was coming, he could give them some sort of a medicine to keep it away--like being vaccinated so's not to have smallpox, you know. And I told him so.

He gave a funny little laugh, that somehow didn't sound like a laugh at all. Then he grew very, very sober, and said:

"I'm sorry, little girl, but I'm afraid I haven't got any medicine that will prevent--a divorce. If I did have, there'd be no eating or drinking or sleeping for me, I'm thinking--I'd be so busy answering my calls."

"Then it _is_ a disease!" I cried. And I can remember just how frightened I felt. "But isn't there any doctor anywhere that _can_ stop it?"

He shook his head and gave that queer little laugh again.

"I'm afraid not," he sighed. "As for it's being a disease--there are people that call it a disease, and there are others who call it a cure; and there are still others who say it's a remedy worse than the disease it tries to cure. But, there, you baby! What am I saying?

Come, come, my dear, just forget it. It's nothing you should bother your little head over now. Wait till you're older."

Till I'm older, indeed! How I hate to have folks talk to me like that!

And they do--they do it all the time. As if I was a child now, when I'm almost standing there where the brook and river meet!

But that was just the kind of talk I got, everywhere, nearly every time I asked any one what a divorce was. Some laughed, and some sighed. Some looked real worried 'cause I'd asked it, and one got mad.

(That was the dressmaker. I found out afterward that she'd _had_ a divorce already, so probably she thought I asked the question on purpose to plague her.) But n.o.body would answer me--really answer me sensibly, so I'd know what it meant; and 'most everybody said, "Run away, child," or "You shouldn't talk of such things," or, "Wait, my dear, till you're older"; and all that.

Oh, how I hate such talk when I really want to know something! How do they expect us to get our education if they won't answer our questions?

I don't know which made me angriest--I mean angrier. (I'm speaking of two things, so I must, I suppose. I hate grammar!) To have them talk like that--not answer me, you know--or have them do as Mr. Jones, the storekeeper, did, and the men there with him.

It was one day when I was in there buying some white thread for Nurse Sarah, and it was a little while after I had asked the doctor if a divorce was a disease. Somebody had said something that made me think you could buy divorces, and I suddenly determined to ask Mr. Jones if he had them for sale. (Of course all this sounds very silly to me now, for I know that a divorce is very simple and very common. It's just like a marriage certificate, only it _un_marries you instead of marrying you; but I didn't know it then. And if I'm going to tell this story I've got to tell it just as it happened, of course.)

Well, I asked Mr. Jones if you could buy divorces, and if he had them for sale; and you ought to have heard those men laugh. There were six of them sitting around the stove behind me.

"Oh, yes, my little maid" (above all things I abhor to be called a little maid!) one of them cried. "You can buy them if you've got money enough; but I don't reckon our friend Jones here has got them for sale."

Then they all laughed again, and winked at each other. (That's another disgusting thing--_winks_ when you ask a perfectly civil question! But what can you do? Stand it, that's all. There's such a lot of things we poor women have to stand!) Then they quieted down and looked very sober--the kind of sober you know is faced with laughs in the back--and began to tell me what a divorce really was. I can't remember them all, but I can some of them. Of course I understand now that these men were trying to be smart, and were talking for each other, not for me. And I knew it then--a little. We know a lot more things sometimes than folks think we do. Well, as near as I can remember it was like this: