"Mary Postgate" is a short story by English author Rudyard Kipling. It was first published in 1915 and tells the story of Mary Postgate, a middle-aged spinster who lives in a small village in England during World War I.
At the beginning of the story, Mary is shown to be a bitter and resentful woman, who is unhappy with her mundane and solitary life. She takes pleasure in causing trouble for others and delights in the misfortunes of her neighbors. Her only companions are her cat and her servant, Nellie.
One day, a young soldier named Dick returns to the village on leave from the front. He is the son of one of Mary's neighbors and was injured in battle. Mary initially shows no compassion towards Dick and is annoyed by his presence, as she believes that he is disrupting her routine.
However, as Dick's stay in the village continues, Mary begins to develop feelings of affection towards him. She starts to care for him and even allows him to sleep in her own bed. When Dick is ordered to return to the front, Mary is devastated and realizes that she has grown to love him.
Tragically, Dick is killed in action and Mary is left alone once again. She becomes even more bitter and resentful, and takes solace in the fact that she will outlive her neighbors and be the last person left in the village.
In the end, Mary's hatred and resentment towards others is shown to be a result of her own loneliness and unhappiness. The story serves as a poignant reminder of the human need for connection and the dangers of living a life filled with negativity and hatred.
Mary Postgate
You were up that day, Monkey? Do you remember his sizes? They spent the evening putting away well-remembered civilian suits, underclothes that Mary had marked, and the regiments of very gaudy socks and ties. As she thought — her underlip caught up by one faded canine, brows knit and nostrils wide — she wielded the poker with lunges that jarred the grating at the bottom, and careful scrapes round the brick-work above. So Mary got the proper-sized needles and wool, while Miss Fowler told the men of her establishment — two gardeners and an odd man, aged sixty — that those who could join the Army had better do so. Their voices were even and low, Their eyes were level and straight. Hennis went on to the county town.
Classic Short Story: ‘Mary Postgate’ by Rudyard Kipling
She was sorry she had even hinted at other things, but Nurse Eden was discretion itself. It was not preached to the crowd, It was not taught by the State. People think about a bomb dropped from a German plane, but the doctor says the barn was already decaying and that it collapsed by itself. Nurse Eden snatched up a sheet drying before the fire, ran out, lifted something from the ground, and flung the sheet round it. It was no question of reading horrors out of newspapers to Miss Fowler. She put on her oldest waterproof and gardening-hat and her ever-slipping goloshes, for the weather was on the edge of more rain. That was the wet December when it rained six inches to the month, and the women went abroad as little as might be.
A Diversity of Creatures/Mary Postgate
It suited her tidy soul, for it saved unsightly rubbish-heaps, and the ashes lightened the stiff clay soil. She slipped up to the house to get it. What have you done with it? I never realised it before. A second trunk was needed, and, after that, a little packing-case, and it was late next day when Cheape and the local carrier lifted them to the cart. This is my plan.
The Jungle Book Essay
That always does us good. The exercise of stoking had given her a glow which seemed to reach to the marrow of her bones. All his civilian clothes can be given away—Belgian refugees, and so on. They spent the evening putting away well-remembered civilian suits, underclothes that Mary had marked, and the regiments of very gaudy socks and ties. Again the head groaned for the doctor. Grant's son who, his mother said, was devoted to the ministry; and, very early indeed, it took Wynn Fowler, who announced on a postcard that he had joined the Flying Corps and wanted a cardigan waistcoat.
Mary Postgate
On the contrary, she gave out, stimulatingly and with reminiscences. A man, at such a crisis, would be what Wynn called a 'sportsman'; would leave everything to fetch help, and would certainly bring It into the house. A woman who had missed these things could still be useful--more useful than a man in certain respects. It was getting on to half-past four, and the rain was coming down in earnest. In a few weeks the mere land and sea battles which she read to Miss Fowler after breakfast passed her like idle breath.
Mary Postgate by Rudyard Kipling in A Diversity of Creatures
The sheet fell aside and for an instant, before she could shut her eyes, Mary saw the ripped and shredded body. When he was 42, he got the Nobel Prize for literature, and he was the first English writer to get it. Hennis changed his tone completely. Go and tell Dr. She read it and carried it to Miss Fowler. As she bumped the chair under the porch she straightened her long back. Mary observed that 'it smelt very badly.
Mary Postgate by Rudyard Kipling
She leaned forward and listened, smiling. As she came out of Mr. A tear trickled from one eye, and the head rolled from shoulder to shoulder as though trying to point out something. Hennis went on to the county town. There could be no mistake. You haven't the mental capacity of a white mouse,' he cried, and explained the dials and the sockets for bomb-dropping till it was time to mount and ride the wet clouds once more. He's twenty now, and I came two years before that.
