right up on his Sunday, and Martha is ashamed of herself. He believes in
getting better by the love way. So do I.

Miss Katherine is going away next week to stay two months. Going to her
army brother's first, and then to the California brother, who's North
somewhere. And from the time she told me I've felt like Robinson
Crusoe's daughter would have felt, if he'd had one, and gone off and
left her on that desert island.

I don't know what we're going to do when she goes away. I could shed
gallons of tears, only I don't like tears, and then, too, she might see
me. I want her to think I'm glad she's going, for she needs a change.
But, oh, the difference her going will make!

I will be nothing but Martha. I know it. Nothing but Martha until she
comes back. The Mary part of me is so sick at the thought she hasn't any
backbone, and Martha is showing signs already.

And that shows I'm just nothing, for Miss Katherine has taught us,
without exactly telling, how we can't do what we ought by wanting. We've
got to work. In plain words, its watch 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.