The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-03-27
Literary Lights And Shadows
BY S. MAYS BALL

'afary Cary by Kate Langley Bosher.
u5arper & Bros)
MARY Cary was. according to her
ewn account, frequently Martha which
meant that Mary Cary had been inn
pertinent to the grown-ups and In the
opinion of some unbiased observers should
have been promptly spanked and sent TO
bed But there were many excuses for
'sMary Cary" who would frequently fall
from grace to Martha. for as she tells
Va that:
my name is Mary Cary I live in the
Yorkburg Female Orphan asylum. You
may think nothing happens in an orphan
asylum. 1t does. The orphans are sure
enough children and real, much like The
kind that have mothers and fathers; but
though they don't give parties or wear
truly Paris clothes, things happen, and
that's why I am going to write this
story
MARY Cary caught very young, had
been deposited in the Yorkburg Female
Orphan asylum. Mary didn't know who
where and what her mother and father
were or had been, particularly to her.
She only know as she writes In her diary
He book that:
g. 1t isn't much in life to be an
inmate of a humane association or a
home or an asylum, or whatever name
you call the place where job-lot charity
children live. And, that's what I am an
inmate Inmates are like malaria and
dyspepsia: something nobody wants and
every place has. 1 am II years
old and II months and days old. I
don't have birthday parties. The York
burg Female Orphan asylum is a large
house with a wide hall in the middle and
= wing on one side that makes 1t look
like Major Green, who lost one arm in
the war.
During the years from to I lived
Just mechanical, except on the inside. 1
got UP to bell and cleaned to a bell
and sat dawn to eat to a bell, rose to a
bell, went to school to bell, came out
to bell worked to bell, sewed to a
bell. played to bell, said my prayers to
a bell, got in bed to bell, and the next
day and every day did the same thing
over to the same old bell. But when
1 marry my children's father there are
to be no bells in the house we live in.
Only buttons, with no particular time to
be pressed.
1--WE go to church to bell, too: that is
TO Sunday school. We always go to st.
Tohn's Sunday school-Episcopal. The
nan who left this place put 1t in his will
hat we had to, but we go to all the
,ther churches. Episcopal, the first Sun
lay. Methodist the second. Presbyterian
he third and Baptist the fourth and
when we get through We begin all over
again. We go to church like we do every
thing else, two by two. Start at tap
of that same old bell and march along
like wooden figures wound up, and the
people who see US don't think We are
really, truly children. or like theirs, ex-
ceptg III shape inside They think we
Just love our hideous clothes and that we
ought to be thankful for molasses and
bread-and-nilk every night in the week
hut one and If we're not we're wicked
Rich, people think queer things
At Sunday school, according to Mary's
own account. she distinguished herself
thusly:
Now. Mary Cary, tell US something Of
the people we have been studying about
this winter. Mention something of Abra-
ham, Isaac and Jacob and Peter and
Paul. Who was Abraham"
/" Abraham was coward said.
IA what2 A What?
q "A coward He was! He passed his wife
Oft for his sister. fearing trouble for
himself and not thinking of consequences
for her. <. s. Jacob was a rascal.
He deceived his father and stole from
his brother. But he prospered and re-
pented and died prominent
Now. you know and this reviewer knows
that no n-year girl in the world ever
said anything like that at a Sunday
school, or anywhere else, or ever thought
it. That's the only one trouble about
these books supposed to have been writ
ten by children; they never could have
been; there never were in real life any
such persons as Rebecca of Sunny Brook
Farm, or Envy Lou or Mary Cary. The
thing to do IN regarding book of this
kind is to simply put yourself in the place
of the author. who in turn had entered
the mind, SO to speak, of the character
described If you can forget the utter
absurdity of supposing that child II