Part 34 (1/2)
”_You?_” said Clarissa, with a gentle intonation.
”I don't care!” said Maria, desperately. ”People are as they are brought up. My mother don't care for such fidgety notions. I speak to please her, and that is enough.”
”No, Maria, it is not enough,” resumed Mrs. Candy. ”Your mother loves you, and so she is willing to overlook little things in you that she _can_ overlook because you are her child; but when you are grown up, you would wish to be liked by other nice people, wouldn't you? people of education, and taste, and elegant habits; and they do not like to have anything to do with people who 'poke their noses' into things, or who say that they do.”
”I'll keep in the kitchen then,” said Maria, hastily.
The breakfast may be said to have ended here; for though a few more mouthfuls were eaten, no more words were said. Mrs. Candy and her daughter left the room and went up-stairs. Maria and Matilda began the work of clearing the table.
”Ain't she too much!” Maria exclaimed.
”But, Maria,” said her little sister, ”I wish you _wouldn't_ say such things.”
”If I am going to be a kitchen maid,” said Maria, ”I may as well talk kitchen maid.”
”Oh, I don't think so, Maria!”
”I don't care!” said Maria. ”I would rather vex aunt Candy than not; and she _was_ vexed this morning. She kept it in pretty well; but she was vexed.”
”But, Maria, that isn't right, is it?”
”Nothing is right,” said Maria; ”and nothing is going to be, I guess, while they are here.”
”Then think, what would mamma do if they went away?”
”I wish I could go away, then!” said Maria, beginning to cry. ”I can't bear to live so! 'Why do you do so,' and 'why do you do _so;_' and Clarissa sitting by with that little smile on her mouth, and lifting up her eyes to look at you--it just makes me _mad_. There! It is a pity Aunt Candy wasn't here to be shocked at American children.”
”But, Maria,” said Matilda with her eyes swimming too, ”you know the Lord Jesus has given us this work.”
”No, I don't!” said Maria; ”and what if He did?”
”Why, then, it would please Him--you know, Maria, it would please Him--to have us do it just nicely and beautifully, and not like kitchen maids, but like His children. You know we said we were ready to do any work that he would give us.”
”I didn't,” said Maria, half crying, half pouting. ”I didn't promise to do _this_ sort of thing.”
”But we mustn't choose,” said Matilda.
”But we _did_ choose,” said Maria. ”I said what I would do, and other people said what they would do; and n.o.body said anything about was.h.i.+ng dishes and peeling potatoes. We were not talking of _that_.”
”The covenant says, 'we stand ready to do His will.' Don't you know?”
”I believe you know that covenant by heart,” said Maria. ”I don't. And I don't care. Matilda, I wish you would run down cellar with the b.u.t.ter, and the cream, and the bread--will you?”
Matilda did not run, but she made journey after journey down the cellar stairs, with feet that grew weary; and then she dried the china while her sister washed it. Then they brushed up the kitchen and made up the fires. Then Maria seated herself on the kitchen table and looked at Matilda.
”I'm tired now, Tilly.”
”So am I.”