The Making of Mary | Page 3

an old dress of Ellie's you can have, an' a pair of Sue's cast-off
boots, and Tom's old cap."
"Where am I to go, mawm?"
"You jest go on from one farmhouse to another, till you find a place
where they'll keep you all winter. It's comin' on to Christmas, an'
people won't be hard on ye. Tell 'em you aint got no folks."
* * * * *
The forlorn little pilgrim took up her march down the snow-covered
road.

THE MAKING OF MARY.
CHAPTER I.
MY wife is a theosophist. This fact may account for her numerous

eccentricities or be simply one of them. I incline to the latter opinion,
because she preferred the unbeaten to the beaten track, both in walk and
conversation, long before Modern Buddhism was ever heard of in the
small Western town of whose chief newspaper (circulation largest in
Michigan) I have the honor to be editor and proprietor.
How such a hot-house plant as Theosophy ever took root in the swamps
and sands of the Wolverine State may seem surprising at the first
glance, but let the second rest upon our environment--the absence of
mountain or swift-flowing river, the presence of fever and ague and
half-burnt pine woods--and it will be seen that this Eastern lore with its
embarrassment of symbols supplies a long-felt want to starving
imagination. We of the West are forever reaching beyond our grasp,
have intelligence and perception, but lack the culture necessary for
discrimination, and therefore the romantic souls among us who rise
above the rampant materialism of the majority go to the other extreme,
and hail with enthusiasm the new-old religion.
"It's better to believe too much than too little, but you theosophists
swallow an awful lot," I say to Belle when she tries to convert me.
I am well aware that many of my fellow-citizens consider me a subject
for commiseration because I have lived for twenty years with so erratic
a house-mate, for I have not deemed it necessary to explain to them that
without the stimulus of her enlivening spirit, without the element of
surprise constantly contributed by my wife's love of variety, the daily
life, and therefore the daily paper, of their favorite editor would partake
of that flatness which is the predominant characteristic of this western
part of the State of Michigan.
Our four sons and two daughters enjoy their mother fully as much as I
do, for is she not the most fascinating romancer they ever knew? Now
that they are all of an age to be attending school and looking out for
themselves, after the manner of independent young Americans, they
require from her nothing but sympathy, for their grandmother sews
their buttons on. Grandma!--Ay, there's the rub.
I have no hesitation in owning that I am Scotch by birth. My mother

left her native land to make her home with us entirely too late in life to
allow Western ideas regarding Sabbath observance, the rearing of
children, or the amount of respect due to the opinion of elders, to
become ingrafted upon Scottish prejudice concerning these matters.
Mrs. Gemmell Senior has, however, the national peculiarity of judging
"blood thicker than water," and whatever her convictions may be
concerning the methods of Mrs. Gemmell Junior, she restricts the
expression of them to our family circle--in fact, I may say, to myself.
She generally seizes me when I lie at my ease on the well-worn lounge
in our sitting room, more properly dubbed the "nursery," for it is
Liberty Hall for the youngsters. Two rooms have been knocked into
one to accommodate their dolls' houses, bookshelves, toys, and printing
machines. Belle had the whole side torn out of the house to build an
open fire-place, on purpose to burn slabs, over which the children roast
pop-corn to their hearts' content.
"A body wad think," said my mother one cold night five or six years
ago, when I lay on the sofa, trying to send my weariness off in smoke,
"A body wad think there had been nae cherritable wark dune in the
toon ava, till they theossiphies set aboot it. If yer provost and baillies
lookit efter things as they ocht, there wad be a dacent puirs-house for
the idignant folk, an' a wheen daft leddies like Eesabel needna gang
roun' speirin' at yon infeedels for their siller tae build a hoose o' refuse."
"There is a county poorhouse, mother, but it doesn't happen to be
located in this city, and they won't take in anybody there that hasn't
been a resident of the county for a certain time."
"Aweel! there's plenty o' kirks, though ye never darken the door o' ane.
Do they no' leuk efter their ain puir folk?"
"Yes; but after nobody else's. This House of Refuge is