your letter
came to me with the one dollar in it. I expect you wanted I should
buy something to bring you with it but I didn't. Listen. It was
what they called a 'green market' morning. Rained of course, or was
terrible foggy between showers. The market is just a lot of Indians
and negroes, and a few white people sitting round on the edge of
the sidewalk all around a big building. The Judge told me many of
them had come from across the harbor, miles beyond it, so far that
they'd had to walk half the night to bring their stuff to market.
Think of that! And such funny stuff it was. Green peas shelled in
little measures, ready to cook. (I wish they'd have them that way
in our own Lexington market at home!) Wild strawberries--I didn't
see any other kind, no big ones like we have in Baltimore or at
home. The berries were hulled and put into little home-made
birch-bark baskets that the Indian women make themselves, just
pinned together at the end with a thorn or stick. Auntie Lu bought
some for us but Miss Greatorex wouldn't let me eat the berries,
though I was just suffering to! She said after they'd been handled
by those dirty Indian fingers she knew they were full of microbes
or things and she didn't dare. Oh! dear! I wish she didn't feel so
terrible responsible for my health, 'cause it spoils a lot of my
good times. The boys weren't afraid of microbes and they ate the
berries but I have the basket. It will be all I have to bring you
from Halifax; because one of those Indian women had her baby with
her and she looked so poor--I just couldn't help giving that dollar
right to her. I couldn't really help it. She wanted me to take
baskets in pay for it, but I knew that wouldn't be _giving_. You
won't mind, will you, dearest Mother Martha? if the only thing I
bring you from that city is a poor Indian woman's blessing? You
always give to the poor yourself, so I wasn't afraid you'd scold.
There are just two things that I'd like different here, on this
lovely vacation. One is if only you and father were here, too!
Every new and nice thing I see, or good time I have, I do so want
them for you both also. The other is--I wish, I wish I knew who my
father and mother were! The real ones. They couldn't have been any
nicer than you have been to me, but folks that don't know me are
sure to ask me about my family. Molly and Monty and Melvin are
always able to tell about theirs, but I can't. Her mother, the
'other Molly,' died when she was