Eleanor H. Porter

“ Before, I used to know just when to be Mary, and when to be Marie—Mary with Father, Marie with Mother. Now I don't know at all. Why, they can't even seem to agree on that! I suppose it's just some more of that incompatibility business showing up even when they are apart. And poor me—I have to suffer for it. I'm beginning to see that the child does suffer—I mean the child of unlikes.
Now, look at me right now—about my clothes, for instance. (Of course clothes are a little thing, you may think; but I don't think anything's little that's always with you like clothes are!) ”

“ I love the sunshine everywhere, and the curtains up to let it in. And the flowers in the rooms, and the little fern-dish on the dining-room table, the books and magazines just lying around ready to be picked up; Baby Lester laughing and singing all over the house, and lovely ladies and gentlemen in the drawing-room having music and tea and little cakes when I come home from school in the afternoon. ”

“ And because boys—not a boy, but boys—were as free to come to the house as were girls, they soon seemed to me as commonplace and matter-of-course and free from sentimental interest as were the girls.
Again wise little mother!
But, of course, even this did not prevent my falling in love with some one older than myself, some one quite outside of my own circle of intimates. Almost every girl in her teens at some time falls violently in love with some remote being almost old enough to be her father—a being whom she endows with all the graces and perfections of her dream Adonis. ”

“ But I feel really awfully old; and you know a woman is as old as she feels. Besides, Nurse Sarah says I am old for my age, and that it's no wonder, the kind of a life I've lived.
And maybe that is so. For of course it has been different, living with a father and mother that are getting ready to be divorced from what it would have been living with the loving, happy-ever-after kind. Nurse Sarah says it's a shame and a pity, and that it's the children that always suffer. But I'm not suffering—not a mite. ”

“ I was thinking of Eunice, and of that round, childish scrawl of a diary upstairs in the attic trunk. And I was picturing Eunice, in the years to come, writing her diary; and I thought, what if she should have to—
I went upstairs then and read that diary again. And all the while I was reading I thought of Eunice. And when it was finished I knew that I'd never tell Mother, that I'd never write to Jerry—not the letter that I was going to write. I knew that—
* * * * *
They brought Jerry's letter to me at just that point. What a wonderful letter that man can write—when he wants to! ”

“ I pictured Jerry in Andersonville, in my own home. I tried to picture him talking to Father, to Mother.
Absurd! What had Jerry to do with learned treatises on stars, or with the humdrum, everyday life of a stupid small town? For that matter, what had Father and Mother to do with dancing and motoring and painting society queens' portraits? Nothing.
Plainly, even if Jerry, for the sake of the daughter, liked Father and Mother, Father and Mother certainly would not like Jerry. That was certain.
Of course I cried myself to sleep that night. That was to be expected. Jerry was the world ”

“ Nurse Sarah says that when you're divorced you're free, just like you were before you were married, and that sometimes they marry again. That made me think right away: what if Father or Mother, or both of them, married again? And I should be there to see it, and the courting, and all! Wouldn't that be some love story? Well, I just guess!
And only think how all the girls would envy me—and they just living along their humdrum, everyday existence with fathers and mothers already married and living together, and nothing exciting to look forward to. ”

“ I'm Mary now, not Marie.
There aren't any teas and dinners and pretty ladies and music and soulful-eyed prospective suitors here. My! Wouldn't Aunt Jane have four fits? And Father, too. But I'd just like to put one of Mother's teas with the little cakes and flowers and talk and tinkling laughs down in Aunt Jane's parlor, and then watch what happened. Oh, of course, the party couldn't stand it long—not in there with the hair wreath and the coffin plate. But they could stand it long enough for Father to thunder from the library, "Jane, what in Heaven's name is the meaning of all this?" ”

“ She shouldn't try to influence you against your father. He is a good man; and there are none too many good men in the world—No, no, I won't say that," she broke off.
But she'd already said it, and, of course, I knew she was thinking of the violinist. I'm no child.
She went on more after that, quite a lot more. And she said again that I must love Father and try to please him in every way; and she cried a little and talked a lot about how hard it was in my position, and that she was afraid she'd only been making it harder, through her selfishness, and I must forgive her, and try to forget it. ”

“ 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:
"A divorce is a knife that cuts a knot that hadn't ought to ever been tied," said one.
"A divorce is a jump in the dark," said another. ”

“ I love stories. I've written lots of them for the girls, too—little short ones, I mean; not a long one like this is going to be, of course. And it'll be so exciting to be living a story instead of reading it—only when you're living a story you can't peek over to the back to see how it's all coming out. I shan't like that part. Still, it may be all the more exciting, after all, not to know what's coming.
I like love stories the best. Father's got—oh, lots of books in the library, and I've read stacks of them, even some of the stupid old histories and biographies. ”

“ And when he asked, "Why, pray?" in a voice almost cross, I told him, of course, that Aunt Jane wouldn't let me; that Mary had to wear brown serge and calfskin boots that were durable, and that would wear well.
And when I told him how sorry I was about the music and such a noise as I'd been making, he asked if that was Marie's fault, too; and I said yes, of course—that Aunt Jane didn't like to have Mary play at all, except hymns and funeral marches, and Mary didn't know any. And he grunted a queer little grunt, and said, "Well, well, upon my soul, upon my soul!" Then he said, "Go on." ”

“ Horses are slow, aren't they?" I cried. "You see, Grandpa has an auto, and—"
"Mary!"—just like that she interrupted—Aunt Jane did. (Funny how old folks can do what they won't let you do. Now if I'd interrupted anybody like that!) "You may as well understand at once," went on Aunt Jane, "that we are not interested in your grandfather's auto, or his house, or anything that is his." (I felt as if I was hearing the catechism in church!) "And that the less reference you make to your life in Boston, the better we shall be pleased. ”

“ I had just passed my sixteenth birthday when we all came back to live in Andersonville. For the first few months I suspect that just the glory and the wonder and joy of living in the old home, with Father and Mother happy together, was enough to fill all my thoughts. Then, as school began in the fall, I came down to normal living again, and became a girl—just a growing girl in her teens. ”

“ Won't it be funny when I don't have to do things on account of Father? And I won't, of course, the six months I'm living with Mother in Boston. But, oh, my!—the six months I'm living here with him—whew! But, then, I can stand it. I may even like it—some. Anyhow, it'll be different. And that's something.
Well, about making this into a book. As I started to say, he wouldn't let me. I know he wouldn't. He says novels are a silly waste of time, if not absolutely wicked. But, a diary—oh, he loves diaries! ”

“ He asked me all over again what she did, and about the parties and the folks that came to see her. He asked again about Mr. Harlow, and about the concert, and the young man who played the violin, and what was his name, and how old was he, and did I like him. And then, right in the middle of some question, or rather, right in the middle of some answer I was giving him, he would suddenly remember he was hearing my lessons, and he would say, "Come, come, Mary, what has this to do with your lessons?"
Just as if I was to blame! (But, then, we women always get the blame, I notice.) ”

“ The violinist is the kind of a man that makes you want to sit up and take notice, and have your hair and finger nails and shoes just right; but with Mr. Easterbrook you wouldn't mind a bit sitting in a big chair before the fire with a pair of old slippers on, if your feet were tired.
Mr. Easterbrook doesn't care for music. He's a broker. He looks awfully bored when the violinist is playing, and he fidgets with his watch-chain, and clears his throat very loudly just before he speaks every time. His automobile is bigger and handsomer than the violinist's. ”

“ Of course, I'm not learning in Aunt Hattie's kitchen. Aunt Hattie's got a new cook, and she's worse than Olga used to be—about not wanting folks messing around, I mean. So Aunt Hattie said right off that we couldn't do it there. I am learning at a Domestic Science School, and Mother is going with me. I didn't mind so much when she said she'd go, too. And, really, it is quite a lot of fun—really it is. But it is queer—Mother and I going to school together to learn how to make bread and cake and boil potatoes! And, of course, Aunt Hattie laughs at us. ”

“ It was Paul Mayhew—yes, the same Paul Mayhew that had defied his mother and sister and walked home with me one night and invited me to go for an automobile ride, only to be sent sharply about his business by my stern, inexorable Aunt Jane. Paul was in the senior class now, and the handsomest, most admired boy in school. He didn't care for girls. ”

“ And best of all I love Mother with her dancing eyes and her laugh, and her just being happy, with no going in and finding her crying or looking long and fixedly at nothing, and then turning to me with a great big sigh, and a "Well, dear?" that just makes you want to go and cry because it's so hurt and heart-broken. ”

“ And I knew right off that first minute that I wasn't going to like Aunt Jane—just the way she said that "Mary," and the way she looked me over from head to foot.
Aunt Jane is tall and thin, and wears black—not the pretty, stylish black, but the "I-don't-care" rusty black—and a stiff white collar. Her eyes are the kind that says, "I'm surprised at you!" all the time, and her mouth is the kind that never shows any teeth when it smiles, and doesn't smile much, anyway. Her hair is some gray, and doesn't kink or curl anywhere ”

“ If Mother's going to want me to be Mary, and Father's going to want me to be Marie, how am I going to know what anybody wants, ever? Besides, it was getting to be such a beautiful love story—Father and Cousin Grace. ”

“ Oh, Father's is fine and big and handsome, and all that, of course; but not like this. His is just a nice place to eat and sleep in, and go to when it rains. But this—this you just want to live in all the time. Here there are curtains 'way up and sunshine, and flowers in pots, and magazines, and cozy nooks with cushions everywhere; and books that you've just been reading laid down. (All Father's books are in bookcases, always, except while one's in your hands being read.)
Grandpa's other daughter, Mother's sister, Hattie, lives here and keeps house for Grandpa. ”

“ I was standing in the window staring out at nothing—it wasn't quite dark yet—when again I had that queer feeling that somebody was looking at me. I turned—and there was Father. He had come in and was sitting in the big chair by the table. But this time he didn't look right away as usual and give me a chance to slip quietly out of the room, as I always had before. Instead he said:
"What are you doing there, Mary?"
"N-nothing." I know I stammered. It always scares me to talk to
Father.
"Nonsense!" Father frowned and hitched in his chair. ”

“ She says she read it once—that the children of unlikes were always a cross-current and a contradiction. And my father and mother are unlikes, and I'm the children. That is, I'm the child. I'm all there is. And now I'm going to be a bigger cross-current and contradiction than ever, for I'm going to live half the time with Mother and the other half with Father. Mother will go to Boston to live, and Father will stay here—a divorce, you know.
I'm terribly excited over it. None of the other girls have got a divorce in their families, and I always did like to be different. ”

“ Then, for a minute, he stared vaguely.
"Eh? Oh! Ah—er—yes, to be sure," he muttered then, "You have come with your books. Yes, I remember."
But there wasn't any twinkle in his eyes, nor the least little bit of an understanding smile; and I was disappointed. I had been looking for it. I knew then, when I felt so suddenly lost and heart-achey, that I had been expecting and planning all day on that twinkly understanding smile. ”

“ They were the prospective suitors. As if I didn't know what Susie and Bridget meant! I'm no child!
But all this doesn't make Father like them. I'm not sure but it makes him dislike them. Anyhow, he won't have anything to do with them. He always runs away over to the observatory, or somewhere, and won't see them; and I've heard him say things about them to Aunt Jane, too—words that sound all right, but that don't mean what they say, and everybody knows they don't. So, as I said before, I don't see any chance of Father's having a love story to help out this book—not right away, anyhow. ”

“ First, of course, school began, and I had to attend to that. And, of course, I had to tell the girls all about Andersonville—except the parts I didn't want to tell, about Stella Mayhew, and my coming out of school. I didn't tell that. And right here let me say how glad I was to get back to this school—a real school—so different from that one up in Andersonville! For that matter, everything's different here from what it is in Andersonville. I'd so much rather be Marie than Mary. I know I won't ever be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde here. I'll be the good one all the time. ”

“ And Mary answered, "Yes, Father," polite and proper, as she should; but Marie inside was just chuckling with the joke of it all.
The next day I watched again at four for Father to come up the walk; and when he had come in I went down to the library. He was there in his pet seat before the fireplace. (Father always sits before the fireplace, whether there's a fire there or not. And sometimes he looks so funny sitting there, staring into those gray ashes just as if it was the liveliest kind of a fire he was watching.) ”

“ Then, of course, I told him that it was upstairs in Grandfather's trunk-room; that Mother had got it out, and I saw it.
"But, what—was your mother doing with that dress?" he asked then, looking even more puzzled and mystified.
And then suddenly I thought and remembered that Mother was crying. And, of course, she wouldn't want Father to know she was crying over it—that dress she had worn when he first met her long ago! (I don't think women ever want men to know such things, do you? I know I shouldn't!) ”

“ But then I didn't quite understand, not even when I looked at him, and saw the old understanding twinkle in his eyes.
"You mean—you thought I was coming as Marie, of course," I said then.
"Yes," he nodded.
"But I came as Mary."
"I see now that you did." He drew in his breath with a queer little catch to it; then he got up and walked up and down the piazza again. (Why do old folks always walk up and down the room like that when they're thinking hard about something? Father always does; and Mother does lots of times, too.) ”