And I did.
I told her how hard I tried to be Mary all the way up to Andersonville
and after I got there; and how then I found out, all of a sudden one
day, that father had got ready for _Marie_, and he didn't want me to
be Mary, and that was why he had got Cousin Grace and the automobile
and the geraniums in the window, and, oh, everything that made it nice
and comfy and homey. And then is when they bought me the new white
dresses and the little white shoes. And I told Mother, of course, it
was lovely to be Marie, and I liked it, only I knew _she_ would feel
bad to think, after all _her_ pains to make me Mary, Father didn't
want me Mary at all.
"I don't think you need to worry--about that," stammered Mother. And
when I looked at her, her face was all flushed, and sort of queer, but
not a bit angry. And she went on in the same odd little shaky voice:
"But, tell me, why--why did--your father want you to be Marie and not
Mary?"
And then I told her how he said he'd remembered what I'd said to him
in the parlor that day--how tired I got being Mary, and how I'd put
on Marie's things just to get a little vacation from her; and he said
he'd never forgotten. And so when it came near time for me to come
again, he determined to fix it so I wouldn't have to be Mary at all.
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