Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice

“ The train began to move. Miss Hazy threw her apron over her head and wept. Mrs. Wiggs and Mrs. Eichorn waved their arms and smiled. The Cabbage Patch, with its crowd of friendly faces, became a blur to the girl on the platform. Suddenly a figure on a telegraph pole attracted her attention; it wore a red necktie and it was throwing kisses. Lovey Mary waved until the train rounded a curve, then she gave Tommy an impulsive hug.
"It ain't hard to be good when folks love you," she said, with a little catch in her voice. "I'll make 'em all proud of me yet!" ”

“ When Lovey Mary stumbled over the Hazy threshold with the sleeping Tommy and the duck in her arms, Miss Hazy fluttered about in dismay. She pushed the flour-sifter farther over on the bed and made a place for Tommy, then she got a chair for the exhausted girl and hovered about her with little chirps of consternation.
"Dear sakes! You're done tuckered out, ain't you? You an' the baby got losted? Ain't that too bad! Must I make you some tea? Only there ain't no fire in the stove. Dear me! what ever will I do? Jes wait a minute; I'll have to go ast Mis' Wiggs." ”

“ Eichorn, in disgust. But then Mrs. Eichorn weighed two hundred, and her judgment was warped. Taking everything into consideration, the prospects had been most flattering. Mr. Stubbins, sitting in Mrs. Wiggs's most comfortable chair, with a large slice of pumpkin-pie in his hand, and with Miss Hazy opposite arrayed in Mrs. Schultz's black silk, had declared himself ready to marry at once. And Mrs. Wiggs, believing that a groom in the hand is worth two in the bush, promptly precipitated the courtship into a wedding. ”

“ Lovey Mary was about to protest, when Kate broke in:
"Oh, say, Miss Bell, please get some other girl! Tommy never would like Lovey. He's just like me: if people ain't pretty, he don't have no use for 'em."
"That will do, Kate," said Miss Bell, coldly. "It is only pity for the child that makes me take him at all. You have forfeited all claim upon our sympathy or patience. Mary, take the baby up-stairs and care for him until I come."
Lovey Mary, hot with rebellion, picked him up and went out of the room. At the door she stumbled against two little girls who were listening at the keyhole. ”

“ It was a long part, full of hard words, but she knew it perfectly and was determined to show how fast she could say it without making a mistake. It was only when she finished that she paused for breath. Then she turned slowly, and stretching forth appealing arms to Faust, sang in a high, sweet voice, "I Need Thee Every Hour." ”

“ The old quilt, still damp, was spread on the ground, and around it sat the picnic party, partaking ravenously of dry sandwiches and cheese and cheer. Such laughing and crowding and romping as there was! Jake gave correct imitations of everybody in the Cabbage Patch, Chris did some marvelous stunts with his wooden leg, and Lovey Mary sang every funny song that she knew. Mrs. Wiggs stood in the wagon above them, and dispensed hospitality as long as it lasted. Cuba, hitched to a fence near by, needed no material nourishment. ”

“ The play, the success, the applause, were all forgotten, and in their place was a shame, a humiliation, that brought the hot tears to her eyes.
"I ain't what they think I am," she whispered brokenly. "I'm a mean, bad girl after all. The canker-worm's there. Miss Viny said there never would be a sure-'nough beautiful flower till the canker-worm was killed. ”

“ Wiggs, emphatically; "it's you, plain as day. Let's go on:
"Your star fortells you a great many lucky events. You are destined to a brilliant success, but you will have to earn it by good conduct. Let wise men lead you. Your mildness against the wretched will bring you the friendship of everbody. ”

“ Where are you and Tommy at?"
"We are in the Cabbage Patch," said Lovey Mary, with the old repulsion strong upon her.
"Where?"
"The Cabbage Patch. It ain't your sort of a place, Kate. The folks are good and honest, but they are poor and plain. You'd laugh at 'em."
Kate turned her eyes to the window and was silent a moment before she said slowly:
"I ain't got much right to laugh at nobody. I'd be sorter glad to get with good people again. The other sort's all right when you're out for fun, but when you're down on your luck they ain't there." ”

“ Lovey Mary looked at the water-waves and sighed.
"If you're ugly you never can get married with anybody, can you, Miss
Bell?" she asked in a spirit of earnest inquiry.
Miss Bell's back became stiffer, if possible, than before.
"Marriage isn't the only thing in the world. The homelier you are the better chance you have of being good. ”

“ The instigator of this new movement was Jake Schultz, whose histrionic ambition had been fired during his apprenticeship as "super" at the opera-house.
"I know a man what rents costumes, an' the promp'-books to go with 'em," he said to several of the boys one Sunday afternoon. "If we all chip in we kin raise the price, an' git it back easy by chargin' admittance."
"Aw, shucks!" said Chris. "We don't know nothin' 'bout play-actin'."
"We kin learn all right," said Billy Wiggs. "I bid to be the feller that acts on the trapeze." ”

“ The effect was electrical. At last the Cabbage Patch understood what was going on. The roof rang with applause. Even Mr. Rothchild held aside his strings of pop-corn to let Marguerite pass out.
"S' more! S' more!" was the cry. "Sing it ag'in!"
Jake stepped before the curtain. "If our friends is willin'," he said, "we'll repeat over the last ak."
Again Lovey Mary scored a triumph. John Bagby burned the rest of the calcium powder during the last verse, and the entertainment concluded in a prolonged cheer. ”

“ Let's send Lovey Mary out there to git some, an' we'll jes repeat the dose on her till it takes some hold."
"I ain't puttin' much stock in Miss Viny," demurred Miss Hazy. "I've heared she was a novelist reader, an' she ain't even a church-member."
"An' do you set up to jedge her?" asked Mrs. Wiggs, in fine scorn. "Miss Viny's got more sense in her little finger than me an' you has got in our whole heads. She can doctor better with them yarbs of hers than any physicianner I know. As to her not bein' a member, she lives right an' helps other folks, an' that's more than lots of members does. ”

“ In a few minutes Miss Hazy returned. With her was a bright-faced little woman whose smile seemed to thaw out the frozen places in Lovey Mary's heart and make her burst into tears on the motherly bosom.
"There now, there," said Mrs. Wiggs, hugging the girl up close and patting her on the back; "there ain't no hole so deep can't somebody pull you out. An' here's me an' Miss Hazy jes waitin' to give you a h'ist."
There was something so heartsome in her manner that Lovey Mary dried her eyes and attempted to explain. "I'm tryin' to get a place," she began, "but nobody wants to take Tommy too. ”

“ Wiggs rocked meditatively, soothing Tommy to sleep as she rocked. When she again spoke it was with inspiration:
"I've got it! It looks sometime, Lovey Mary, 's if I'd sorter caught some of Mr. Wiggs's brains in thinkin' things out. They ain't but one thing to do with Miss Hazy's husband, an' we'll do it this very night."
"What, Mrs. Wiggs? What is it?" asked Lovey Mary, eagerly.
"Why, to lose him, of course! We'll wait till Mr. Stubbins is dead asleep; you know men allays have to sleep off a jag like this. I've seen Mr. Wiggs—I mean I've heared 'em say so many a time. ”

“ A trip is something you never will fergit in all yer life. It was jes like Mrs. Reddin' to think about it; but I don't wonder she feels good to you. Asia says she never expects to see anything like the way you shook that candy outen little Robert. But see here, if you go 'way off there you mustn't fergit us."
"I never could forget you all, wherever I went," said Lovey Mary. "I was awful mean when I come to the Cabbage Patch; somehow you all just bluffed me into being better. I wasn't used to being bragged on, and it made me want to be good more than anything in the world." ”

“ He's the savagest man I know, yit he keered fer that duck as tender as a woman. But it ain't jes seein' the good in folks an' sayin' nice things when you're feelin' good. The way to git cheerful is to smile when you feel bad, to think about somebody else's headache when yer own is 'most bustin', to keep on believin' the sun is a-shinin' when the clouds is thick enough to cut. Nothin' helps you to it like thinkin' more 'bout other folks than about yerself."
"I think 'bout Tommy first," said Lovey Mary. ”

“ You'll have to stay at home yourself if you can't be good."
"I feel like I was doin' to det limber," threatened Tommy.
Mrs. Wiggs recognized a real danger. She also knew that discretion was the better part of valor. "Here's a nice little place up here by me, jes big enough fer you an' Cusmoodle. You kin set on the basket; it won't mash nothin'. If we're packed in good an' tight, can't none of us fall out."
When the last basket was stored away, the party started off in glee, leaving Miss Hazy still irresolute in the doorway, declaring that "she almost wisht she had 'a' went." ”

“ Stubbins was unsteadily separating himself from the debris into which he had been cast, Lovey Mary slammed the door and locked it. Then she picked up Tommy and fled out of the house and across the yard.
Mrs. Wiggs was sitting on her back porch pretending to knit, but in truth absorbed in a wild game of tag which the children were having on the commons. "That's right," she was calling excitedly—"that's right, Chris Hazy! You kin ketch as good as any of 'em, even if you have got a peg-stick." ”

“ If you want to be cheerful, jes set yer mind on it an' do it. Can't none of us help what traits we start out in life with, but we kin help what we end up with. When things first got to goin' wrong with me, I says: 'O Lord, whatever comes, keep me from gittin' sour!' It wasn't fer my own sake I ast it,—some people 'pears to enjoy bein' low-sperrited,—it was fer the childern an' Mr. Wiggs. Since then I've made it a practice to put all my worries down in the bottom of my heart, then set on the lid an' smile."
"But you think ever'body's nice and good," complained Lovey Mary. ”

“ One Saturday, as Lovey Mary came home from the factory, she saw a well-dressed figure disappearing in the distance.
"Who is that lady?" she demanded suspiciously of Europena Wiggs, who was swinging violently on the gate.
"'T ain't no lady," said Europena. "It's my Sunday-school teacher."
"Mrs. Redding?"
"Uh-huh. She wants Asia to come over to her house this evenin'."
"Wisht I could go," said Lovey Mary.
"Why can't you?" asked Mrs. Wiggs, coming to the open door. "Asia would jes love to show Mrs. Reddin' how stylish you look in that red dress. I'll curl yer hair on the poker if you want me to." ”

“ It was easy to establish a precedent in the Cabbage Patch. When a certain course of action was once understood to be the proper thing, every resident promptly fell in line. The victim of "celebrated concussion" was overwhelmed with attention. She lay in a pink wrapper in Miss Hazy's kitchen, and received the homage of the neighborhood. Meanwhile Lovey Mary worked extra hours at the factory and did sewing at night to pay for Kate's board.
In spite, however, of the kind treatment and the regular administration of Miss Viny's herbs and Mrs. Wiggs's yellowroot, Kate grew weaker day by day. ”

“ But, after all, they can't all be alike! There's all sorts of Christians: some stands fer sunshine, some fer shade; some fer beauty, some fer use; some up high, some down low. There's jes one thing all the flowers has to unite in fightin' ag'inst—that's the canker-worm, Hate. If it once gits in a plant, no matter how good an' strong that plant may be, it eats right down to its heart."
"How do you get it out, Miss Viny?" asked Lovey Mary, earnestly. ”

“ You never was set 'bout nothin' in yer life. Lovey Mary's jes took you an' the house an' ever'thing in hand, an' in four weeks got you all to livin' like white folks. I ain't claimin' she ain't sharp-tongued; I 'low she's sassed 'bout ever'body in the Patch but me by now. But she's good, an' she's smart, an' some of her sharp corners'll git pecked off afore her hair grows much longer."
"Oh, mercy me! here she comes now to git her lunch," said Miss Hazy, with chagrin. "I ain't got a thing fixed."
"You go on an' sew; I'll mess up a little somethin' fer her. She'll stop, anyway, to talk to Tommy. ”