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"No, indeed; they couldn't afford to do that. Lemme see, lemme see " For five minutes Mrs. 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.
"Well, how'd you ever happen to come here?" cried Mrs. Wiggs, who had come to the door. "There is one for each of the mission-school families; just a little Christmas greeting, you know." Mrs. Wiggs's spirits were rising every minute. "Well, that certainly is kind an' thoughtful like," she said.
You tell him, sez I, 'you are Hiram Wiggs's boy, an' as long as he done so much harm to yer pa, mebbe he'd be glad to do a good turn by you, an' keep you an' the hoss fer the night, till yer ma comes fer you. Well, Jim started off, lookin' mighty little settin' up on that big hoss, an' I waved my apron long as I could; then I hid behin' a tree to keep him from seein' me cry.
To the many eyes that surveyed him from behind shutters and half-open doors he was something of a disappointment. Mrs. Wiggs's rosy anticipations had invested him with the charms of an Apollo, while Mr. Stubbins, in reality, was far from godlike. "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.
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.
Lovey Mary smiled faintly; for a month past she had been unconsciously striving to live up to Mrs. Wiggs's opinion of her, and the constant praise and commendation of that "courageous captain of compliment" had moved her to herculean effort. But a sudden catastrophe threatened her. She sat on the door-step, white and miserable.
Stubbins is sound asleep, you an' me an' Billy will drag him out to the railroad." Mrs. Wiggs's voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper, and her eyes looked fierce in the twilight. Lovey Mary shuddered. "You ain't going to let the train run over him, are you?" she asked. "Lor', child, I ain't a 'sassinator!
Wiggs's protestations, he put them in, and repeated Billy's directions as to the exact location of the Cabbage Patch. "My, my, ain't this nice!" said Mrs. Wiggs, leaning back against carriage cushions for the first time in her life, while Redding lifted Europena in beside her. "We 've seed a good time fer onct in our lives," said Asia.
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 went cheerfully away to administer chastisement to her erring offspring. "The play, the play's the thing!" BILLY'S foreign policy proved most satisfactory, and after the annexation of Cuba many additional dimes found their way into the tin box on top of the wardrobe. But it took them all, besides Mrs. Wiggs's earnings, to keep the family from the awful calamity of "pulling agin a debt."
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