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Stockton, Frank Richard, 1834-1902

"The House of Martha"


"'I have been thinking about your suggestion of typewriting,' she said.
'Is it difficult to learn? Do you understand it? What use could I make
of a machine in the House of Martha?'
"I told her that I understood the art, and gave her all the information
I could in regard to it, taking care to make the vocation as attractive
as my conscience would allow. As to the use she could make of it, I said
that at present there was a constant demand for typewritten copies of
all sorts of writings,--legal, literary, scientific, everything.
"'And people would send me things,' she asked, 'and I would copy them on
the typewriter, and send them back, and that would be all?'
"'You have put it exactly,' I said. 'If you do not choose, you need have
no communication whatever with persons ordering the work.'
"'And do you know of any one who would want such work done?'
"'Yes,' I said; 'I know people who would be very glad to send papers to
be copied. I could procure you some work which would be in no hurry, and
that would be an advantage to you in the beginning.'
"'Indeed it would,' she said; and then her mother joined us, and the
subject of typewriting was dropped. The only time that it was referred
to again was at the very end of my trip, when Miss Raynor came to me,
just as I was preparing to leave the yacht, and told me that she had
made up her mind to get a typewriter and to learn to use it; and she
asked me, if I were still willing to assist her in securing work, to
send my address to the Mother Superior of the House of Martha, which of
course I assured her I would do.


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