Mary Cary | Page 3

were discussing a request for Pinkie Moore, and, as usual, Miss Bray didn't want Pinkie to go. You see, Pinkie was very useful. She did a lot of disagreeable things for Miss Bray, and Miss Bray didn't want to lose her. And when Mrs. Roane, who is the only Board lady truly seeing through her, asked, real sharplike, why Pinkie shouldn't go this time, Miss Bray spoke out like she was really grieved.
"I declare, Mrs. Roane," she said--and she twirled her keys round and round her fingers, and twitched the nostril parts of her nose just like a horse--"I declare, Mrs. Roane, I hate to tell you, I really do. But Pinkie Moore wouldn't do for adoption. She has a terrible temper, and she's so slow nobody would keep her. And then, too"--her voice was the Pharisee kind that the Lord must hate worse than all others--"and then, too, I am sorry to say Pinkie is not truthful, and has been caught taking things from the girls. I hope none of you will mention this, as I trust by watching over her to correct these faults. She begs me so not to send her out for adoption, and is so devoted to me that--" And just then she saw me, which she hadn't done before, I being behind Mrs. Armstead, and she stopped like she had been hit.
For a minute I didn't breathe. I didn't. All I did was to stare--stare with mouth open and eyes out; and then it was the glasses went down and I flew into the yard, and there by the pump was Pinkie.
"Oh, Pinkie!" I said. "Oh, Pinkie!" And I caught her round the waist and raced up and down the yard like a wild man from Borneo. "Oh, Pinkie, what do you think?" Poor Pinkie, thinking a mad dog had bit me, tried to make me stop, but stop I wouldn't until there was no more breath. And then we sat down on the woodpile, and I hugged her so hard I almost broke her bones.
First I was so mad I couldn't cry, and then crying so I couldn't speak. But after a while words came, and I said:
"Pinkie Moore, are you devoted to Miss Bray? Are you? I want the truest truth. Are you devoted to her?"
"Devoted to Miss Bray? Devoted!" And poor little Pinkie, who has no more spirit than a poor relation, spoke out for once. "I hate her!" she said. "I hate her worse than prunes; and if somebody would only adopt me, I'd be so thankful I'd choke for joy, except for leaving you." Then she boohoo'd too, and the tears that fell between us looked like we were artesian wells--they certainly did.
But Pinkie didn't know what caused my tears. Mine were mad tears, and not being able to tell her why they came, I had to send her to the house to wash her face. I washed mine at the pump, and then worked off some of my mad by sweeping the yard as hard as I could, wishing all the time Miss Bray was the leaves, and trying to make believe she was. I was full of the things the Bible says went into swine, and I knew there would be trouble for me before the day was out. But there wasn't. Not even for breaking the pump-handle was I punished, and Miss Bray tried so hard to be friendly that at first I did not understand. I do now.
That was my first experience in finding out that some one who looked like a lady on the outside was mean and deceitful on the inside, and it made me tremble all over to find it could be so. Since then I have never pretended to be friends with Miss Bray. As for her, she hates me--hates me because she knows I know what sort of a person she is, a sort I loathe from my heart.
When I first got my diary I thought I was going to write in it every day. I haven't, and that shows I'm no better on resolves than I am on keeping step. I never keep step. Sometimes I've thought I was really something, but I'm not. Nobody much is when you know them too well. It is a good thing for your pride when you keep a diary, specially when you are truthful in it. Each day that you leave out is an evidence of character--poor character--for it shows how careless and put-off-y you are; both of which I am.
But it isn't much in life to be an inmate of a Humane Association, or a Home, or an Asylum, or whatever name you call the place where job-lot charity children live. And that's what I am, an Inmate. Inmates are like