tch and pray, and with me it's the
watching that's most important. If I'm not on the lookout, and don't nab
Martha right away, praying don't have any effect. I'm a natural pray-er,
but on watching I'm poor.

I couldn't make any one understand what Miss Katherine has done for us
since she's been here. Some words don't tell things. The nursing when
we're sick is only a part, and though she's fixed up one of the rooms
just like a hospital-room, with everything so white and clean and sweet
in it that it's real joy to be sick, we're not sick often.

It's the keeping us well that's kept her so busy. She's explained so
many things to us we didn't know before, she's almost made me like my
body. I didn't use to. Not a bit.

It's such a nuisance, and needs so much attention to keep it going
right. So often it was freezing cold, or blazing hot, or hungry, and had
to be dressed in such ugly clothes that I was ashamed of it. And if ever
I could have hung it up in the closet or put it away in a bureau-drawer,
I would have done it while I went out and had a good time. But I
couldn't do it. I had to take it everywhere I went, and until Miss
Katherine came I had mighty little use for it.

But since she's been here the girls are much cleaner, and we don't mind
so much not having the things to eat that we like. That is, not quite so
much. But almost. When you're downright hungry for the taste of things,
it don't satisfy to say to yourself "You don't really need it. Be
quiet." And being made of flesh and blood, most of us would rather eat
the things we want to than the things we ought to.

But the dining-room is much nicer. We have flowers on the table, and the
cooking is better, though we still have prunes.

I loathe prunes.

V

"HERE COMES THE BRIDE!"

I knew when Miss Katherine left I'd be nothing but Martha. That's what
I've been--Martha.

She hadn't been gone two days when Mary gave up, and as prompt as
possible Martha invented trouble.

It was this way. In the summer we have much more time than in the
winter, and the children kept coming to me asking me to make up
something, and all of a sudden a play came in my mind. I just love
acting. The play was to be the marriage of Dr. Rudd and Miss Bray.

You see, Miss Bray is dead in love with Dr. Rudd--really addled about
him. And whenever he comes to see any of the children who are sick she
is so solicitous and sweet and smiley that we call her, to ourselves,
Ipecac