Lovey Mary | Page 9

in the ambalance-
wagon, an' she never knowed a bloomin' thing!"

"Why didn't you go on with them to the hospital!" asked Lovey Mary.
"I don't see how the doctors could get along without you."
"Oh, you're just mad 'cause you didn't see her. She was awful pretty!
Had on a black hat with a white feather in it, but it got in the mud. They
say she had a letter in her pocket with her name on it."
"I thought maybe she come to long enough to tell you her name,"
teased her tormentor.
"Well, I do know it, Smarty," retorted the other, sharply: "it's Miss Kate
Rider."
Meanwhile in the Cabbage Patch Miss Hazy and Mrs. Wiggs were
holding a consultation over the fence.
"She come over to my house first," Mrs. Wiggs was saying,
dramatically illustrating her remarks with two tin cans. "This is me here,
an' I looks up an' seen the old lady standin' over there. She put me in
mind of a graven image. She had on a sorter gray mournin', didn't she,
Miss Hazy?"
"Yes, 'm; that was the way it struck me. Bein' gray, I 'lowed it was fer
some one she didn't keer fer pertickler."
"An' gent's cuffs," continued Mrs. Wiggs; "I noticed them right off.
''Scuse me,' says she, snappin' her mouth open an' shut like a trap--
''scuse me, but have you seen anything of two strange children in this
neighborhood?' I th'owed my apron over Lovey Mary's hat, that I was
trimmin'. I wasn't goin' to tell till I found out what that widder woman
was after. But before I was called upon to answer, Tommy come tearin'
round the house chasin' Cusmoodle."
"Who?"
"Cusmoodle, the duck. I named it this mornin'. Well, when the lady
seen Tommy she started up, then she set down ag'in, holdin' her skirts
up all the time to keep 'em from techin' the floor. 'How'd they git here?'

she ast, so relieved-like that I thought she must be kin to 'em. So I up
an' told her all I knew. I told her if she wanted to find out anything
about us she could ast Mrs. Reddin' over at Terrace Park. 'Mrs. Robert
Reddin'?' says she, lookin' dumfounded. 'Yes,' says I, 'the finest lady,
rich or poor, in Kentucky, unless it's her husband.' Then she went on an'
ast me goin' on a hunderd questions 'bout all of us an' all of you all, an'
'bout the factory. She even ast me where we got our water at, an' if you
kept yer house healthy. I told her Lovey Mary had made Chris carry out
more 'n a wheelbarrow full of dirt ever' night since she had been here,
an' I guess it would be healthy by the time she got through."
[Illustration: "'She took on mighty few airs fer a person in mournin'.'"]
Miss Hazy moved uneasily. "I told her I couldn't clean up much 'count
of the rheumatism, an' phthisic, an' these here dizzy spells--"
"I bet she didn't git a chance to talk much if you got started on your
symptims," interrupted Mrs. Wiggs.
"Didn't you think she was a' awful haughty talker?"
'No, indeed. She took on mighty few airs fer a person in mournin'.
When she riz to go, she says, real kind fer such a stern-faced woman,
'Do the childern seem well an' happy?' 'Yes, 'm; they're well, all right,'
says I. 'Tommy he's like a colt what's been stabled up all winter an' is
let out fer the first time. As fer Mary,' I says, 'she seems kinder low in
her mind, looks awful pestered most of the time.' 'It won't hurt her,'
says the lady. 'Keep a' eye on 'em,' says she, puttin' some money in my
hand,' an' if you need any more, I'll leave it with Mrs. Reddin'.' Then
she cautioned me pertickler not to say nothin' 'bout her havin' been
here."
"She told me not to tell, too," said Miss Hazy; "but I don't know what
we're goin' to say to Mrs. Schultz. She 'most sprained her back tryin' to
see who it was, an' Mrs. Eichorn come over twicet pertendin'-like she
wanted to borrow a corkscrew driver."
"Tell 'em she was a newfangled agent," said Mrs. Wiggs, with

unblushing mendacity--"a' agent fer shoestrings."
CHAPTER V
THE DAWN OF A ROMANCE
"There is in the worst of fortunes The best of chances for a happy
change."
"Good land! you all're so clean in here I'm feared of ketchin' the
pneumony."
Mrs. Wiggs stood in Miss Hazy's kitchen and smiled approval at the
marvelous transformation.
"Well, now, I don't think it's right healthy," complained Miss Hazy,
who was sitting at the machine, with her feet on a soap-box; "so much
water sloppin' round is mighty