It was an early hour for visitors at the city hospital, but when Lovey Mary stated her business she was shown to Kate's ward. At the far end of the long room, with her bandaged head turned to the wall, lay Kate. When the nurse spoke to her she turned her head painfully, and looked at them listlessly with great black eyes that stared forth from a face wasted and wan from suffering.

"Kate!" said Lovey Mary, leaning across the bed and touching her hand. "Kate, don't you know me?"

The pale lips tightened over the prominent white teeth. "Well, I swan, Lovey Mary, where'd you come from?" Not waiting for an answer, she continued querulously: "Say, can't you get me out of this hole someway? But even if I had the strength to crawl, I wouldn't have no place to go. Can't you take me away? Anywhere would do."

Lovey Mary's spirits fell; she had nerved herself for a great sacrifice, had decided to do her duty at any cost; but thinking of it beforehand in her little garret room, with Tommy's hand in hers, and Kate Rider a mere abstraction, was very different from facing the real issue, with the old, selfish, heartless Kate in flesh and blood before her. She let go of Kate's hand.

"Don't you want to know about Tommy?" she asked. "I've come to say I was sorry I run off with him."

"It was mighty nervy in you. I knew you'd take good care of him, though. But say! you can get me away from this, can't you? I ain't got a friend in the world nor a cent of money. But I ain't going to stay here, where there ain't nothing to do, and I get so lonesome I 'most die. I'd rather set on a street corner and run a hand-organ. 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, perplexed and troubled, looked at her gravely.

"Haven't you got any place you could go to?"



Kate shook her head. "Nobody would be willing to look after me and nurse me. Lovey,"—she stretched her thin hand across to her entreatingly,—"take me home with you! I heard the doctor tell the nurse he couldn't do nothing more for me. I can't die here shut up with all these sick people. Take me wherever you are at. I'll try not to be no trouble, and—I want to keep straight."

Tears were in her eyes, and her lips trembled. There was a queer little spasm at Lovey Mary's heart. The canker-worm was dead.

When a carriage drove up to Miss Hazy's door and the driver carried in a pale girl with a bandaged head, it caused untold commotion.

"Do you s'pose Mary's a-bringin' home a smallpox patient?" asked Miss Hazy, who was ever prone to look upon the tragic side.

"Naw!" said Chris, who was peeping under the window-curtain; "it looks more like she's busted her crust."

In less than an hour every neighbor had been in to find out what was going on. Mrs. Wiggs constituted herself mistress of ceremonies. She had heard the whole story from the overburdened Mary, and was now prepared to direct public opinion in the way it should go.

"Jes another boarder for Miss Hazy," she explained airily to Mrs. Eichorn. "Lovey Mary was so well pleased with her boardin'-house, she drummed it up among her friends. This here lady has been at the hospittal. She got knocked over by a wagon out there near the factory, an' it run into celebrated concussion. The nurse told Lovey Mary this mornin' it was somethin' like information of the brain. What we're all goin' to do is to try to get her well. I'm a-goin' home now to git her a nice dinner, an' I jes bet some of you'll see to it that she gits a good supper. You kin jes bank on us knowin' how to give a stranger a welcome!"

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. One stormy night when Lovey Mary came home from the factory she found her burning with fever and talking excitedly. Miss Hazy had gotten her up-stairs, and now stood helplessly wringing her hands in the doorway.

"Lor', Lovey Mary! she's cuttin' up scandalous," complained the old lady. "I done ever'thing I knowed how; I ironed the sheets to make 'em warm, an' I tried my best to git her to swallow a mustard cocktail. I wanted her to lemme put a fly-blister on to her head, too, but she won't do nothin'."

"All right, Miss Hazy," said Lovey Mary, hanging her dripping coat on a nail. "I'll stay with her now. Don't talk, Kate! Try to be still."

"But I can't, Lovey. I'm going to die, and I ain't fit to die. I've been so bad and wicked, I'm 'fraid to go, Lovey. What'll I do? What'll I do?"

In vain the girl tried to soothe her. Her hysteria increased; she cried and raved and threw herself from side to side.

"Kate! Kate!" pleaded Lovey Mary, trying to hold her arms, "don't cry so. God'll forgive you. He will, if you are sorry."

"But I'm afraid," shuddered Kate. "I've been so bad. Heaven knows I'm sorry, but it's too late! Too late!" Another paroxysm seized her, and her cries burst forth afresh.

Mary, in desperation, rushed from the room. "Tommy!" she called softly down the steps.

The small boy was sitting on the stairs, in round-eyed wonder at what was going on.

"Tommy," said Lovey Mary, picking him up, "the sick lady feels so bad! Go in and give her a love, darling. Pet her cheeks and hug her like you do me. Tell her she's a pretty mama. Tell her you love her."

Tommy trotted obediently into the low room and climbed on the bed. He put his plump cheek against the thin one, and whispered words of baby- love. Kate's muscles relaxed as her arms folded about him. Gradually her sobs ceased and her pulse grew faint and fainter. Outside, the rain and sleet beat on the cracked window-pane, but a peace had entered the dingy little room. Kate received the great summons with a smile, for in one fleeting moment she had felt for the first and last time the blessed sanctity of motherhood.



CHAPTER XIII

AN HONORABLE RETREAT

"For I will ease my heart Although, it be with hazard Of my head."

Miss Bell sat in her neat little office, with the evening paper in her hand. The hour before tea was the one time of the day she reserved for herself. Susie Smithers declared that she sat before the fire at such times and took naps, but Susie's knowledge was not always trustworthy —it depended entirely on the position of the keyhole.

At any rate, Miss Bell was not sleeping to-night; she moved about restlessly, brushing imaginary ashes from the spotless hearth, staring absently into the fire, then recurring again and again to an item in the paper which she held:

DIED. Kate Rider, in her twenty-fourth year, from injuries received in an accident.

Miss Bell seemed to cringe before the words. Her face looked old and drawn. "And to think I kept her from having her child!" she said to herself as she paced up and down the narrow room. "No matter what else Kate was, she was his mother and had the first right to him. But I acted for the best; I could see no other way. If I had only known!"



There were steps on the pavement without; she went to the window, and shading her eyes with her hands, gazed into the gathering dusk. Some one was coming up the walk, some one very short and fat. No; it was a girl carrying a child. Miss Bell reached the door just in time to catch Tommy in her arms as Lovey Mary staggered into the hall. They were covered with sleet and almost numb from the cold.

"Kate's dead!" cried Lovey Mary, as Miss Bell hurried them into the office. "I didn't know she was going to die. Oh, I've been so wicked to you and to Kate and to God! I want to be arrested! I don't care what they do to me."

She threw herself on the floor, and beat her fists on the carpet. Tommy stood near and wept in sympathy; he wore his remnant trousers, and his little straw hat, round which Mrs. Wiggs had sewn a broad band of black.

Miss Bell hovered over Lovey Mary and patted her nervously on the back. "Don't, my dear, don't cry so. It's very sad—dear me, yes, very sad. You aren't alone to blame, though; I have been at fault, too. I— I—feel dreadfully about it."

Miss Bell's face was undergoing such painful contortions that Lovey Mary stopped crying in alarm, and Tommy got behind a chair.

"Of course," continued Miss Bell, gaining control of herself, "it was very wrong of you to run away, Mary. When I discovered that you had gone I never stopped until I found you."

"Till you found me?" gasped Lovey Mary.

"Yes, child; I knew where you were all the time."

Again Miss Bell's features were convulsed, and Mary and Tommy looked on in awed silence. "You see," she went on presently, "I am just as much at fault as you. I was worried and distressed over having to let Tommy go with Kate, yet there seemed no way out of it. When I found you had hidden him away in a safe place, that you were both well and happy, I determined to keep your secret. But oh, Mary, we hadn't the right to keep him from her! Perhaps the child would have been her salvation; perhaps she would have died a good girl."

"But she did, Miss Bell," said Lovey Mary, earnestly. "She said she was sorry again and again, and when she went to sleep Tommy's arms was round her neck."

"Mary!" cried Miss Bell, seizing the girl's hand eagerly, "did you find her and take him to her?"

"No, ma'am. I brought her to him. She didn't have no place to go, and I wanted to make up to her for hating her so. I did ever'thing I could to make her well. We all did. I never thought she was going to die."

Then, at Miss Bell's request, Lovey Mary told her story, with many sobs and tears, but some smiles in between, over the good times in the Cabbage Patch; and when she had finished, Miss Bell led her over to the sofa and put her arms about her. They had lived under the same roof for fifteen years, and she had never before given her a caress.

"Mary," she said, "you did for Kate what nobody else could have done. I thank God that it all happened as it did."

"But you'd orter scold me and punish me," said Lovey Mary. "I'd feel better if you did."

Tommy, realizing in some vague way that a love-feast was in progress, and always ready to echo Lovey Mary's sentiments, laid his chubby hand on Miss Bell's knee.

"When my little sled drows up I'm doin' to take you ridin'," he said confidingly.

Miss Bell laughed a hearty laugh, for the first time in many months. The knotty problem which had caused her many sleepless nights had at last found its own solution.



CHAPTER XIV

THE CACTUS BLOOMS

"I tell thee love is nature's second sun, Causing a spring of virtues where he shines."

It was June again, and once more Lovey Mary stood at an up-stairs window at the home. On the ledge grew a row of bright flowers, brought from Miss Viny's garden, but they were no brighter than the face that smiled across them at the small boy in the playground below. Lovey Mary's sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and a dust-cloth was tied about her head. As she returned to her sweeping she sang joyfully, contentedly:

"Can she sweep a kitchen floor, Billy boy, Billy boy? Can she sweep a kitchen floor, Charming Billy?"

"Miss Bell says for you to come down to the office," announced a little girl, coming up the steps. "There's a lady there and a baby."

Lovey Mary paused in her work, and a shadow passed over her face. Just three years ago the same summons had come, and with it such heartaches and anxiety. She pulled down her sleeves and went thoughtfully down the steps. At the office door she found Mrs. Redding talking to Miss Bell.

"We leave Saturday afternoon," she was saying. "It's rather sooner than we expected, but we want to get the baby to Canada before the hot weather overtakes us. Last summer I asked two children from the Toronto home to spend two weeks with me at our summer place, but this year I have set my heart on taking Lovey Mary and Tommy. They will see Niagara Falls and Buffalo, where we stop over a day, besides the little outing at the lake. Will you come, Mary? You know Robert might get choked again!"

Lovey Mary leaned against the door for support. A half-hour visit to Mrs. Redding was excitement for a week, and only to think of going away with her, and riding on a steam-car, and seeing a lake, and taking Tommy, and being ever so small a part of that gorgeous Redding household! She could not speak; she just looked up and smiled, but the smile seemed to mean more than words, for it brought the sudden tears to Mrs. Redding's eyes. She gave Mary's hand a quick, understanding little squeeze, then hurried out to her carriage.

That very afternoon Lovey Mary went to the Cabbage Patch. As she hurried along over the familiar ground, she felt as if she must sing aloud the happy song that was humming in her heart. She wanted to stop at each cottage and tell the good news; but her time was limited, so she kept on her way to Miss Hazy's, merely calling out a greeting as she passed. When she reached the door she heard Mrs. Wiggs's voice in animated conversation.

"Well, I wish you'd look! There she is, this very minute! I never was so glad to see anybody in my life! My goodness, child, you don't know how we miss you down here! We talk 'bout you all the time, jes like a person puts their tongue in the empty place after a tooth's done pulled out."

"I'm awful glad to be back," said Lovey Mary, too happy to be cast down by the reversion to the original state of the Hazy household.

"Me an' Chris ain't had a comfortable day sence you left," complained Miss Hazy. "I'd 'a' almost rather you wouldn't 'a' came than to have went away ag'in."

"But listen!" cried Lovey Mary, unable to keep her news another minute. "I'm a-going on a railroad trip with Mrs. Redding, and she's going to take Tommy, too, and we are going to see Niag'ra and a lake and a buffalo!"

"Ain't that the grandest thing fer her to go and do!" exclaimed Mrs. Wiggs. "I told you she was a' angel!"

"I'm right skeered of these here long trips," said Miss Hazy, "so many accidents these days."

"My sakes!" answered Mrs. Wiggs, "I'd think you'd be 'fraid to step over a crack in the floor fer fear you'd fall through. Why, Lovey Mary, it's the nicest thing I ever heared tell of! An' Niag'ry Fall, too. I went on a trip once when I was little. Maw took me through the mountains. I never had seen mountains before, an' I cried at first an' begged her to make 'em sit down. 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."

"That's so," said Mrs. Wiggs. "You can coax a' elephant with a little sugar. The worser Mr. Wiggs used to act, the harder I'd pat him on the back. When he'd git bilin' mad, I'd say: 'Now, Mr. Wiggs, why don't you go right out in the woodshed an' swear off that cuss? I hate to think of it rampantin' round inside of a good-lookin' man like you.' He'd often take my advice, an' it always done him good an' never hurt the woodshed. As fer the childern, I always did use compelments on them 'stid of switches."

Lovey Mary untied the bundle which she carried, and spread the contents on the kitchen table. "I've been saving up to get you all some presents," she said. "I wanted to get something for every one that had been good to me, but that took in the whole Patch! These are some new kind of seed for Miss Viny; she learned me a lot out of her garden. This is goods for a waist for you, Miss Hazy."

"It's rale pretty," said Miss Hazy, measuring its length. "If you'd 'a' brought me enough fer a skirt, too, I'd never 'a' got through prayin' fer you."

Mrs. Wiggs was indignant. "I declare, Miss Hazy! You ain't got a manner in the world, sometimes. It's beautiful goods, Lovey Mary. I'm goin' to make it up fer her by a fancy new pattern Asia bought; it's got a sailor collar."

"This here is for Chris," continued Lovey Mary, slightly depressed by Miss Hazy's lack of appreciation, "and this is for Mrs. Schultz. I bought you a book, Mrs. Wiggs. I don't know what it's about, but it's an awful pretty cover. I knew you'd like to have it on the parlor table."

It was the "Iliad"!

Mrs. Wiggs held it at arm's-length and, squinting her eyes, read: "Home of an Island."

"That ain't what the man called it," said Lovey Mary.

"Oh, it don't matter 'bout the name. It's a beautiful book, jes matches my new tidy. You couldn't 'a' pleased me better."

"I didn't have money enough to go round," explained Lovey Mary, apologetically, "but I bought a dozen lead-pencils and thought I'd give them round among the children."

"Ever'thing'll be terrible wrote over," said Miss Hazy.

The last bundle was done up in tissue-paper and tied with a silver string. Lovey Mary gave it to Mrs. Wiggs when Miss Hazy was not looking.

"It's a red necktie," she whispered, "for Billy."

When the train for the North pulled out of the station one Saturday afternoon it bore an excited passenger. Lovey Mary, in a new dress and hat, sat on the edge of a seat, with little Robert on one side and Tommy on the other. When her nervousness grew unbearable she leaned forward and touched Mrs. Redding on the shoulder:

"Will you please, ma'am, tell me when we get there?"

Mrs. Redding laughed. "Get there, dear? Why, we have just started!"

"I mean to the Cabbage Patch. They're all going to be watching for me as we go through."

"Is that it?" said Mr. Redding. "Well, I will take the boys, and you can go out and stand on the platform and watch for your friends."

Lovey Mary hesitated. "Please, sir, can't I take Tommy, too? If it hadn't 'a' been for him I never would have been here."

So Mr. Redding took them to the rear car, and attaching Lovey Mary firmly to the railing, and Tommy firmly to Mary, returned to his family.

"There's Miss Viny's!" cried Lovey Mary, excitedly, as the train whizzed past. "We're getting there. Hold on to your hat, Tommy, and get your pocket-handkerchief ready to wave."

The bell began to ring, and the train slowed up at the great water- tank.

"There they are! All of 'em. Hello, Miss Hazy! And there's Asia and Chris and ever'body!"

Mrs. Wiggs pushed through the little group and held an empty bottle toward Lovey Mary. "I want you to fill it fer me," she cried breathlessly. "Fill it full of Niag'ry water. I want to see how them falls look."



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!"

THE END