IN WHICH WALTER DOES NOT WANT NINE EIGHTS
TO BE SEVENTY-TWO; AND MARTHA MARY FEELS
SO BADLY FOR HIM THAT SHE GOES TO SEEK
ADVENTURE. SHE FINDS IT
IT all happened because Walter couldn’t learn how many times eight was seventy-two. The eight tables are hard enough, but when it comes to dividing by eight even John made mistakes at times. Walter insisted that eight sevens were seventy-two. Mother Dear said they were not, but Walter said he knew best. Mother Dear looked sorry and said if Walter were quite positive he was right, then she supposed he must be, but she had learned that nine eights were seventy-two.
“They’re not,” said stubborn Walter.
“What are they then, Dear?” asked Mother.
“Don’t know,” said Walter. “But I won’t have them seventy-two.”
Then Mother Dear almost lost her patience.
“Very well, Walter,” she said. “But, if you cannot believe your mother, I hardly think it worth while helping you, so you may leave the room.”
Walter lost his temper altogether and went out, slamming the door and kicking his feet. Later, Martha Mary, who felt as badly for him as she did for Mother Dear, although she knew Mother was right, found him in the hayloft, with a miserable look in his eyes and a smudge of dirt where tears had been.
“Please, Mr. Brother,” she said, “don’t feel badly.”
“Go away,” said Walter. “I hate you.”
“Walter,” pleaded Martha Mary, “you shouldn’t. It hurts when you are that way. Please come play.”
“Won’t,” said Walter. “Get out of here; I hate you.”
Really miserable and almost crying herself, Martha Mary crept away to find the rest of the family. Father was busy writing Things in a large book. Mother Dear was bathing Liza; John was rowing Edward Lee on the lake Ocean.
“Don’t bother me,” he called. “I can’t hear you. I am miles away.”
More unhappy than before, Martha Mary walked down the gravel path to the gate. Then she opened it, a thing she rarely did, and went out. It was rather dusty on the county road, and the wind was blowing, and it fluffed her hair all about her face. It felt good—the wind always does. Almost immediately Martha Mary became more cheerful, and as soon as she became cheerful she had an idea. They always come when one is happy. She made up her mind to have an adventure; she didn’t know exactly what it would be, but an adventure she would have. She had never had a really and truly one all to herself; John had them; so did Walter and Edward Lee, like whitewashing and inking the cat, or finding a bird’s nest in the old straw hat in the hayloft. But nothing had ever really happened to Martha Mary and she didn’t know just how to begin. She thought for a long time; then a brown squirrel popped up in the middle of the road, cocked its ears, and scampered into the poppy field.
“I’ll follow ‘him,’” decided Martha Mary, “and see what happens. Perhaps it will be like Alice in Wonderland.”
Away the two of them went, lickety-split, down a hillside and up another to the crest and over it. Right there, just on the other side—— Guess what! There was a group of children, at least a dozen, all of the boys in blue jumpers and the girls in blue Kate Greenaway dresses, and they were gathered around one of the boys who was a little bigger than the others; even bigger than John. He was talking quite excitedly, and Martha Mary stood, fascinated, watching him and quite forgot little Mr. Squirrel, who had by this time completely disappeared up a tree. Finally the big boy saw Martha Mary and took off his hat and said, “Hullo!”
“Hullo!” said Martha Mary.
Again the boy said, “Hullo!” and looked at the tips of his shoes; then suddenly he smiled a perfectly good smile and said:
“Perhaps you could tell us?”
“Please, what?” asked Martha Mary.
“We are hunting for wild violets and there don’t seem to be any. Do you know where they grow?”
Of course Martha Mary knew. There were oodles and oodles of them on the Sherman Place, just at the edge of the lake Ocean. She thought it would be lovely to bring all of the children home to pick them and perhaps, if there was enough, to have tea.
“Wouldn’t your Mother care?” asked the big boy. “Or are you like us? Haven’t you one?”
Martha Mary could hardly believe her ears. “Haven’t any of you mothers?” she asked.
“Nope,” said the boy. “Nor fathers, either.”
“How awful!” said Martha Mary. “Where do you live? Who takes care of you?”
“We live at the Charity,” said the boy. “We take care of ourselves, excepting at meal-time or lessons.”
“How nice!” said Martha Mary. “Can anyone live there?”
“Yes,” said the boy, “if you are an orphan. But it’s not nice. No one takes an interest or anything in you. The only excitement is when ladies with eyeglasses on sticks come from the Affiliated Charities to pat you on the head and say, ‘Dear little shaver,’ and make you want to run away.”
“And they look to see if your ears are clean,” said one little girl.
“And ask if you are good and say your prayers,” said another.
“And of course we say ‘Yes,’” said the big boy, “and then they give us pennies and tell us to save them and we will be rich when we grow up.”
“It’s not true,” said Martha Mary. “You always spend them before you grow up. Things are very expensive! I know!”
Then they remembered the violets, so down the hills and to the road they scampered, Martha Mary at the head of the lot (to be exact, there were six boys and eight girls). Through the gates and up to the house she took them to introduce them to Mother Dear, who was still feeling pretty badly at the way Walter had behaved. When she saw Martha Mary with all her company she dropped her sewing and said:
“What in the world has the child done?”
Martha Mary told her as quickly as she could all about their being orphans and about the violets and the affiliated ladies who gave them pennies to save. Mother Dear’s eyes grew soft in the way they have and she kissed Martha Mary and shook hands with the children, no matter how dirty they were. She told Martha Mary to take them to the violets by the lake and not let them fall in, for some of them were quite small and liable to. Martha Mary promised, then called Edward Lee and John and they brought along Walter, who was now in a sensible frame of mind. John was inclined to be standoffish until Martha Mary, who knew him like a book, told him that the biggest little boy liked men better than women, and then John became quite nice.
In a little while Martha Mary had learned the names of all the orphans, and I’ll tell them to you, although you’ll no doubt forget.
First there was the biggest little boy; he was called “Slats,” because he was thin. The Home name for him was Thomas Dorne. Then there was the biggest little girl, Helen Dolittle, and then Reddy Smith and Sammy O’Reilly and Sue Patience Grey and John Shaw and Margaret something—her parents had died before she was able to find out what the last name was—and Pansy and Amy Rebecca Isaacs and Skinny Dawson and Patrick O’Harahan, and finally the most adorable little golden-haired girl I have ever seen and her name was awful. It was Dolcerina Vennicci, but they called her “Piffy.”
Away went the eighteen children to the edge of the lake, where there were so many violets under the green leaves that everyone fell to picking and became too busy to talk. After a while, when hats and arms and aprons were full of flowers, Martha Mary said:
“Let’s play.”
“Play skin the Fox,” said Skinny Dawson.
“Ich tee goo,” said Piffy. “Ich tee goo” means something like “Oof” or “Horrid” or “Dirty” or “Creepy” or “Slimy.” So you could tell what she meant, although I confess it’s hard to find the word that explains it.
“We’ll play ring around a rosy,” said Amy Rebecca.
“I have an idea,” said Martha Mary. “We’ll have a story.”
“Can you tell them?” asked Sue Patience.
“No—not exactly, but Flip can. Perfectly wonderful ones!”
“Who is Flip?” they all wanted to know.
“I’ll show you,” said Martha Mary. Away she rushed and in a moment she was back, dragging Flip after her and he holding in his hand the pages of a letter from Jane that he had not had half time enough to read twice.
“Hullo, You!” he said to them all, without waiting for an introduction. You see, Mother Dear had told him that they were there and that he must be nice.
“What do you want?”
“We want a story!” they all shouted.
Flip turned to Martha Mary and struck a pose like an old-time actor.
“Alas! Madam,” he said, “my fame precedes me. I fain would accommodate you, but it wearies me to ever seek new plots.”
“Don’t be hateful,” said Martha Mary.
“’Tis well,” said Flip. “What nature of story-do you desire?”
They all shouted at once: “Pirates—dolls—fairies—ghosts—love—shipwreck—creepy—bloody——” until you couldn’t tell who was talking.
“Wait!” roared Flip. “You can’t expect me to think if you don’t be quiet. I’m going to tell just the kind of a story I wish and, if you don’t like it, you can go jump in the lake and drown. But I hope you won’t, because then I’ll be insulted.”
This is the story he told them: