The Making of Mary | Page 2

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"baby" teeth and the tardy arrival of the later contingent.
Part of the day the child seemed satisfied with her new-found liberty.
Having discovered a stale crust or two in a cupboard, she wanted no
more, for her diet had never been luxurious. Into every corner of the
house she intruded her small freckled nose, pulling down from shelves
all sorts of odds and ends that had been left behind as worthless at the
flitting.
There was an old straw bonnet with a pair of dirty strings, and
therewith the damsel elected to adorn the tousled head, which
evidenced but slight acquaintance with comb or brush. She could not
find any feminine garments to please her fancy, but there was a boy's
jacket, out at elbows and ragged round the edges, which she proudly
donned, and as a finishing touch she popped her long slim legs, old
shoes and all, into a worn-out pair of man's top-boots that reached to
her knees.
"I just wish Mawm Mason had lef' a lookin'-glass behin', so's I could
see how I look. My! wouldn't she whack me if she seen me with this
bonnet on!" The child smiled broadly as she continued her confidential
address to the other valueless things left behind. "I allays knowed she
warn't my own mother, an' I'm glad Pete nor Matty aint my own brother
nor sister neither. I'd like him to see me in his jacket!"
She pulled the coat across her narrow little chest to where it met in the
days when there were buttons on it, and marched up and down the
room, making as much noise as possible with the big boots.
This killing of time was all very well while the daylight lasted and the
sun warmed up the frosty November air, but when the darkness began
to assert itself once more the small waif did not feel so contented.
"There aint no use goin' over to Mis' Morgan's. She don't want me no
more'n Mis' Mason did. I guess I'll sleep upstairs to-night with some o'
them things over me. I'll be warm anyhow."
In the middle of the front bedroom she heaped up all the débris and

crawled beneath it. A fantastic pile it seemed to the moon when he
looked in after the rain had stopped, the childish head resting on the
cover of an old bandbox at one side and a pair of man's boots sticking
out at the other.
The last scrap of bread was finished next day, and the two potatoes
picked up in the yard proved uneatable without the softening influence
of fire, so there was nothing for it but Mrs. Morgan's. After sunset,
when the rapidly falling temperature and the heavy bank of clouds in
the west gave warning of a snow-storm, the little girl, still wearing the
old bonnet, boy's jacket, and man's boots, left the only home she could
remember, and made her way slowly over the hard rough fields and
snake fences to the next farmhouse.
Mrs. Morgan was running in from the barn with a shawl over her head.
"Good sakes alive! Mary Mason! I hardly knowed you. What you got
on? I thought you was one o' them scarecrows out o' the fall wheat.
Mis' Mason moved to Californy three days ago. Didn't she take you
with her?"
"No, mawm."
"So it 'pears. Wal, she hadn't any call to, I s'pose. You aint none o'
hers."
By this time they were in the kitchen of the farmhouse, Mrs. Morgan
rubbing her hands above the stove, and Mary Mason also venturing
near, stretching out her thin arms to the heat, for the adopted jacket was
somewhat short in the sleeves.
"What's that mark on yer wrist?"
"Bruise--but it don't hurt now."
"Who done it?"
"Ma--Mis' Mason. I've lots worse'n that on me," said the small girl with

some vanity.
"There, now! I jest knew that Mis' Mason was a hard case, though my
man would never hear to it. What you going to do now?"
"I dunno." The accent implied that to be a matter of small moment.
"I don't s'pose we can turn you out to-night. There's room in the attic
for you to sleep, but don't you go near one o' my girls' beds with that
head o' yourn."
As a hostess, Mrs. Morgan was a slight improvement upon Mrs. Mason.
She never took stick or strap to the foundling, and if she occasionally
gave her a cuff on the ear it was never strong enough to knock the girl
down. But the Morgan children bullied Mary Mason, the Morgan father
grumbled at an extra mouth to feed, and when she had been about a
month in the house the mistress of it told her she must move on.
"There's