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Lovey Mary

by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice (1870–1942)

  • Free to read
  • 1 hour to read
  • 14 chapters
  • Reading level: 6th grade

"Lovey Mary" by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice is a novel written during the early 20th century. The story revolves around the struggles and aspirations of a young girl named Lovey Mary, who grapples with feelings of inadequacy and yearns for love and acceptance while navigating her life in an orphanage. Lovey Mary's character is richly layered, depicted as both rebellious and compassionate, seeking to find her place in a world that often seems unkind. At the start of the novel, readers are introduced to Lovey Mary as she engages in a comedic yet poignant interaction with Miss Bell, the matron of the orphanage, illustrating her chaotic inner world. The opening chapter showcases her contradictions—her desire for beauty and acceptance against the harsh realities of her upbringing. Lovey’s longing for connection is further emphasized when she is tasked with caring for a baby, Tommy, which ignites a fierce protective instinct within her. As Lovey Mary faces various trials—her disdain for her appearance, her resentment toward the orphanage, and her fierce love for Tommy—the narrative sets a tone of both vulnerability and resilience, engaging readers in her quest for identity and belonging.

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  • Orphans
  • Friendship
  • Mothers and sons
  • Runaway children
  • Youth and death
  • Girls · Conduct of life
  • Orphanages
  • Poverty

Read the opening

Chapter I

A CACTUS-PLANT

For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear,...
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,—
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.
BROWNING'S "A Death in the Desert."

Everything about Lovey Mary was a contradiction, from her hands and feet, which seemed to have been meant for a big girl, to her high ideals and aspirations, that ought to have belonged to an amiable one. The only ingredient which might have reconciled all the conflicting elements in her chaotic little bosom was one which no one had ever taken the trouble to supply.

When Miss Bell, the matron of the home, came to receive Lovey Mary's confession of repentance, she found her at an up-stairs window making hideous faces and kicking the furniture. The depth of her repentance could always be gaged by the violence of her conduct. Miss Bell looked at her as she would have looked at one of the hieroglyphs on the Obelisk. She had been trying to decipher her for thirteen years.

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Contents

  1. Chapter I
  2. Chapter II
  3. Chapter III
  4. Chapter IV
  5. Chapter V
  6. Chapter VI
  7. Chapter VII
  8. Chapter VIII
  9. Chapter IX
  10. Chapter X
  11. Chapter XI
  12. Chapter XII
  13. Chapter XIII
  14. Chapter XIV

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About this edition

This free edition of Lovey Mary by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice comes from Project Gutenberg eBook #5970, released 2004-06-01. It is in the public domain in the United States, so you can read it here in full at no cost, on any phone, tablet or computer. Genre: Children & Young Adult Reading, Novels, American Literature.

Summary provided by Project Gutenberg (automatically generated).

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