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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. He was contentedly sniffing the smoke-filled air, and living over again the days of his youth. When the party reached home, tired and grimy, they were still enthusiastic over the fine time they had had. "It's jes the way I said," proclaimed Mrs.
"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."
I 'spect by the time it's used up Nance'll be of my way of think-in'. An' I was!" added Mrs. Wiggs, laughing. Ordinarily Lucy found endless diversion in listening to the family reminiscences, but to-day another subject was on her mind. "How is Billy getting along?" she asked. "Jes' fine!" said Mrs. Wiggs; "only he comes home at night 'most dead.
The business meeting next morning "to think things out" resulted satisfactorily. At first Mrs. Wiggs was inclined to ask questions and find out where the children came from, but when she saw Lovey Mary's evident distress and embarrassment, she accepted the statement that they were orphans and that the girl was seeking work in order to take care of herself and the boy.
Wiggs, taking a hot iron from the stove, "I 've done that, too. I remember onct last winter I was tooken sick, an' I got to pesterin' 'bout what the childern 'ud do if I died. They wasn't no money in the house, an' they didn't know where to git none. All one night I laid there with my head 'most bustin', jes' worryin' 'bout it.
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."
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.
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. Well, when Mr.
Wiggs could have a monumint, and Billy never said a word, but he set his head to it. One day he come home with a lot of these here tiles what they had throwed out from the tile fact'ry; some of 'em was jes' a little nicked, an' the others was jes' as good as new. Well, he kep' on gittin' 'em ever' day or two, till he had a consider'ble pile.
"Why, Billy Wiggs!" she exclaimed, "do you think I'd take an' go to a show, when Asia an' Australia ain't got a good shoe to their backs?" Billy said no more about the theater, but that afternoon, when he was out with the kindling, he pondered the matter deeply.
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