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There is a widow, named McSwiggins, with six children, and I guess they have had a pretty hard time, and now their taxes are due and the interest and two of them have had the typhoid fever, and are just skin and bone, and they had to sell the cow, and they cried, and I felt like a thief when I carried her off."
When that was accomplished, the Mysterious Four hid themselves in some bushes by the side of the road to await developments. Presently Johnny McSwiggins, trailing listlessly towards the barn, gave one look and rushed back into the house. "They's somethin' out thar," he said, with his eyes bulging. Mary McSwiggins, the oldest girl, looked at him hopelessly. "I don' care ef they is.
"Gee," said Johnny McSwiggins, but the rest of them were silent, gazing at this transformed and glorified Sweetheart, while Mary laid her head against the sleek neck and murmured love names to her dear little cow. "They's somethin' at the end of them ribbins," said Mrs. McSwiggins, after awhile, "you all go an' look."
McSwiggins wiped her eyes and sobbed, "I reckon it was, honey," but Mary McSwiggins with her eyes shining as they had never shone before in her sad little life said softly to her mother, "I'll bet it was them girls and that Bart boy. I'll bet it was " "What girls?" asked Mrs. McSwiggins. "Them girls down at the Judge's in the big house.
The little McSwiggins squealed and gurgled with delight, and then ate as only people can who have seen the gaunt wolf of starvation at the door, and as they ate they asked the question unceasingly: "Who sent it?" "They's a letter tied to her horn," volunteered Johnny McSwiggins after he had devoured two cookies and three sandwiches and a chicken leg. "I seen it." Also these other gifts.
And that's how they got that fairy name you look here," and she held up the note to her mother, "'Ju ann lot' it's jes' them names strung together." "Well, now," said Mrs. McSwiggins, "if that ain' bright, honey. But I don't know's we ought to take all them things." "Sweetheart ain't goin' away from yer no more," said Mary, firmly, "and they'd feel mighty bad if we didn't take the other things."
We alls too po' fer anythin' to hurt." "But hit looks lak Sweetheart's ghos'," declared Johnny, "an' hit's got pink ribbin on. I declar' hit look lak Sweetheart's ghos', Sistuh Ma'y." At that beloved name, Mary rushed out, while the family trailed behind, Mrs. McSwiggins bringing up the rear with the wan baby in her arms.
"Oh, poor things," cried Judy, when Launcelot finished his breathless recital, "poor things." "I didn't want to take her, after I found out, but Mrs. McSwiggins said that they needed the money awfully, and that I was doing them a favor only it was hard, and then she cried and the children all cried, too." "Why haven't they told some one before this?" asked the Judge, wiping his eyes.
"I don't want them to know who gives it," said Judy. "I hate that way of giving. I don't want to go and stare at them and talk to them about their poverty. I think it would be nice to tie a note to Sweetheart's horns and just leave her there." The next day about noon, a mysterious party, with a strange and unusual looking cow in their midst, crept to the back of the McSwiggins barn.
"Well," she patted his coat collar, coaxingly, "I want you to give me the money, and let me buy back the McSwiggins cow. "I'll buy it myself." But she shook her head. "No, I want to give it myself. I feel so so thankful, father, for my happiness, that I want to do something for somebody else, who isn't happy." He put his hand under her chin and turned her face with its earnest eyes up to him.
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