The Making of Mary

The Making of Mary, by Jean
Forsyth

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Title: The Making of Mary
Author: Jean Forsyth
Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19343]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE "UNKNOWN" LIBRARY

THE MAKING OF MARY
BY JEAN FORSYTH
NEW YORK THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 31 EAST 17TH ST.
(UNION SQUARE)

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.
All rights reserved.
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J.

PROLOGUE.
A STURDY northeast wind was rattling the doors and windows of a
deserted farmhouse in Western Michigan. The building was not old,
measured by years, but it had never been painted or repaired, and its
wooden face, prematurely lined with weather stains, looked as if it had
borne the wear and tear of centuries. The windows, like lidless eyes,
stared vacantly at the flat stubble fields and the few spindling trees, a
dreary apology for an orchard. There were plenty of shingles off the
roof to allow the inquisitive rain-drops to follow one another through
the rafters, and thence to the floor of the room below, where the
darkness was creeping out of the corners to take possession.
The house had been but recently vacated, for there was still a "slab"
smoldering on the hearth of the wide fireplace in the outer kitchen, and
something that looked almost human, wrapped in a ragged bedquilt,
was lying much too near it for safety. A friendly gust of wind came
down the chimney, bringing back the smoke, and drawing a faint cough
from the bundle. Another gust and another cough, and then a sneeze
which burst open the quilt, to disclose an ill-clad little girl, six or seven
years old.

She gazed about with drowsy blue eyes till terror of the darkness made
her draw the tattered comforter over her head again, and crouching
nearer to the smoldering log, she tried to warm her fingers and toes.
More wind down the chimney made more smoke, and sent the child
coughing back from the fireplace. She was wide awake now, and stood
listening. Sounds there were, indeed, but not one that could be
associated with any living thing in the house. She felt her way around
the walls to where the candle used to be, but it was gone. There was no
furniture to stumble over, and when she came to the side of the wall in
the inner room from which the stairway crept up, she mounted it on her
hands and knees, trembling, partly with cold, partly with fear at the
noise made by the flapping of the sole of one of her old shoes. There
was a step missing at the turn of the stairs, but the child knew where the
vacancy was, and pulling herself over it, she reached the landing, felt
all around the walls there, and made the circuit of the three small rooms
in the same fashion. They were entirely empty.
Cautiously the girl stole down the broken stairs and back to her former
place by the smoking slab, where she curled herself up into the old quilt
again, as into a mother's arms, and spoke aloud, though there was none
to listen but the obstreperous wind:
"Anyhow she won't be here to lick me no more!" That thought seemed
to compensate for darkness and loneliness. The voices of wind and rain
were apparently more kindly than the human tones to which she had
been accustomed, and soothed by their stormy lullaby, the little maid
fell asleep.
The sunshine poured freely into the forsaken house next morning,
drying up the damp floors, and turning to gold the scrap of yellow hair
that showed through a hole in the old quilt. Presently the small girl
shook the covering away from her and stood up, to yawn and stretch
herself out of the stiffness from a night spent on the hard floor. She was
not a pretty child, unless naturally curling fair hair, that would be fairer
when it was washed, could make her so. The long, thin legs that came
below her torn dress made her too tall for her age, and what might have
been a passable mouth was spoiled by the departure of two of