Mrs. Parker has had a hard life, even the neighbours say so. As a girl in Stratford-on-Avon, she had never heard of Shakespeare. In her first position in London, she wasn't allowed out of the cellar except to pray with the family. After two years of being run off her feet in a doctor's house, she married a baker who died of consumption while their six surviving children were still young.

"Life of Ma Parker" by Katherine Mansfield is the story of a woman who has always "kept herself to herself," but can bear her burdens no longer.

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