Lovey Mary Part 5

"Well, it may lead to that," answered Mrs. Wiggs, hopefully. Surely only a beneficent Providence could have offered such an unexpected solution to the problem of Miss Hazy's future.

Miss Hazy herself uttered faint protests and expostulations, but in spite of herself she was becoming influenced by Mrs. Wiggs's enthusiasm.

"Oh, shoo!" she repeated again and again. "I ain't never had no thought of marryin'."

"Course you ain't," said Mrs. Wiggs. "Good enough reason: you ain't had a show before. Seems to me you'd be flyin' straight in the face of Providence to refuse a stylish, sweet-smilin' man like that."

"He is fine-lookin'," acknowledged Miss Hazy, trying not to appear too pleased; "only I wisht his years didn't stick out so much."

Mrs. Wiggs was exasperated.

"Lawsee! Miss Hazy, what do you think he'll think of yer figger? Have you got so much to brag on, that you kin go to pickin' him to pieces?

Do you suppose I'd 'a' dared to judge Mr. Wiggs that away? Why, Mr.

Wiggs's nose was as long as a clothespin; but I would no more 'a'

thought of his nose without him than I would 'a' thought of him without the nose."

"Well, what do you think I'd orter do 'bout it?" asked Miss Hazy.

"I ain't quite made up my mind," said her mentor. "I'll talk it over with the neighbors. But I 'spect, if we kin skeer up a quarter, that you'll answer by the mornin's mail."

That night Lovey Mary sat in her little attic room and held Tommy close to her hungry heart. All day she worked with the thought of coming back to him at night; but with night came the dustman, and in spite of her games and stories Tommy's blue eyes would get full of the sleep-dust. Tonight, however, he was awake and talkative.

"Ain't I dot no muvver?" he asked.

"No," said Lovey Mary, after a pause.

"Didn't I never had no muvver?"

Lovey Mary sat him up in her lap and looked into his round, inquiring eyes. Her very love for him hardened her heart against the one who had wronged him.

"Yes, darling, you had a mother once, but she was a bad mother, a mean, bad, wicked mother. I hate her--hate her!" Lovey Mary's voice broke in a sob.

"Ma--ry; aw, Ma--ry!" called Miss Hazy up the stairs. "You'll have to come down here to Chris. He's went to sleep with all his clothes on 'crost my bed, an' I can't git him up."

Lovey Mary tucked Tommy under the cover and went to Miss Hazy's a.s.sistance.

"One night I had to set up all night 'cause he wouldn't git up,"

complained Miss Hazy, in hopelessly injured tones.

Lovey Mary wasted no time in idle coaxing. She seized a broom and rapped the sleeper sharply on the legs. His peg-stick was insensible to this insult, but one leg kicked a feeble protest. In vain Lovey Mary tried violent measures; Chris simply s.h.i.+fted his position and slumbered on. Finally she resorted to strategy:

"Listen, Miss Hazy! Ain't that the fire-engine?"

In a moment Chris was hanging half out of the window, demanding, "Where at?"

"You great big lazy boy!" scolded Lovey Mary, as she put Miss Hazy's bed in order. "I'll get you to behaving mighty different if I stay here long enough. What's this?" she added, pulling something from under Miss Hazy's pillow.

"Oh, it ain't nothin'," cried Miss Hazy, reaching for it eagerly. But Lovey Mary had recognized the "spirit picture."

CHAPTER VI

THE LOSING OF MR. STUBBINS

"Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove."

If the Cabbage Patch had pinned its faith upon the efficiency of the matrimonial agency in regard to the disposal of Miss Hazy, it was doomed to disappointment. The events that led up to the final catastrophe were unique in that they cast no shadows before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Mrs. Wiggs took pictures from her walls and chairs from her parlor to beautify the house of Hazy."]

Miss Hazy's letters, dictated by Mrs. Wiggs and penned by Lovey Mary, were promptly and satisfactorily answered. The original of the spirit picture proved to be one Mr. Stubbins, "a prominent citizen of Bagdad Junction who desired to marry some one in the city. The lady must be of good character and without inc.u.mbrances." "That's all right," Mrs.

Wiggs had declared; "you needn't have no inc.u.mbrances. If he'll take keer of you, we'll all look after Chris."

The wooing had been ideally simple. Mr. Stubbins, with the impetuosity of a new lover, demanded an early meeting. It was a critical time, and the Cabbage Patch realized the necessity of making the first impression a favorable one. Mrs. Wiggs took pictures from her walls and chairs from her parlor to beautify the house of Hazy. Old Mrs.

Schultz, who was confined to her bed, sent over her black silk dress for Miss Hazy to wear. Mrs. Eichorn, with deep insight into the nature of man, gave a pound-cake and a pumpkin-pie. Lovey Mary scrubbed, and dusted, and cleaned, and superintended the toilet of the bride elect.

The important day had arrived, and with it Mr. Stubbins. To the many eyes that surveyed him from behind shutters and half-open doors he was something of a disappointment. Mrs. Wiggs's rosy antic.i.p.ations had invested him with the charms of an Apollo, while Mr. Stubbins, in reality, was far from G.o.dlike. "My land! he's lanker 'n a bean-pole,"

exclaimed Mrs. 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 courts.h.i.+p into a wedding.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Mr. Stubbins, sitting in Mrs. Wiggs's most comfortable chair, with a large slice of pumpkin-pie in his hand"]

The affair proved the sensation of the hour, and "Miss Hazy's husband"

was the cynosure of all eyes. For one brief week the honeymoon shed its beguiling light on the neighborhood, then it suffered a sudden and ignominious eclipse.

The groom got drunk.

Mary was clearing away the supper-dishes when she was startled by a cry from Miss Hazy:

"My sakes! Lovey Mary! Look at Mr. Stubbins a-comin' up the street! Do you s'pose he's had a stroke?"

Lovey Mary ran to the window and beheld the "prominent citizen of Bagdad Junction" in a state of unmistakable intoxication. He was bareheaded and hilarious, and used the fence as a life-preserver. Miss Hazy wrung her hands and wept.

"Oh, what'll I do?" she wailed. "I do b'lieve he's had somethin' to drink. I ain't goin' to stay an' meet him, Mary; I'm goin' to hide. I always was skeered of drunken men."

"I'm not," said Mary, stoutly. "You go on up in my room and lock the door; I'm going to stay here and keep him from messing up this kitchen. I want to tell him what I think of him, anyhow. I just hate that man! I believe you do, too, Miss Hazy."

Miss Hazy wept afresh. "Well, he ain't my kind, Mary. I know I'd hadn't orter marry him, but it 'pears like ever' woman sorter wants to try gittin' married oncet anyways. I never would 'a' done it, though, if Mrs. Wiggs hadn't 'a' sicked me on."

By this time Mr. Stubbins had reached the yard, and Miss Hazy fled.

Lovey Mary barricaded Tommy in a corner with his playthings and met the delinquent at the door. Her eyes blazed and her cheeks were aflame. This modern David had no stones and sling to slay her Goliath; she had only a vocabulary full of stinging words which she hurled forth with indignation and scorn. Mr. Stubbins had evidently been abused before, for he paid no attention to the girl's wrath. He pa.s.sed jauntily to the stove and tried to pour a cup of coffee; the hot liquid missed the cup and streamed over his wrist and hand. Howling with pain and swearing vociferously, he flung the coffee-pot out of the window, kicked a chair across the room, then turned upon Tommy, who was adding shrieks of terror to the general uproar. "Stop that infernal yelling!" he cried savagely, as he struck the child full in the face with his heavy hand.

Lovey Mary sprang forward and seized the poker. All the pa.s.sion of her wild little nature was roused. She stole up behind him as he knelt before Tommy, and lifted the poker to strike. A pair of terrified blue eyes arrested her. Tommy forgot to cry, in sheer amazement at what she was about to do. Ashamed of herself, she threw the poker aside, and taking advantage of Mr. Stubbins's crouching position, she thrust him suddenly backward into the closet. The manoeuver was a brilliant one, for while Mr. 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." But when she caught sight of Mary's white, distressed face and Tommy's streaming eyes, she dropped her work and held out her arms. When Mary had finished her story Mrs. Wiggs burst forth: