Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

nny nature th

dark place,

ts stood near, and a great bunch of long-stemmed roses on the piano filled the room with fragrance. But Lucy evidently found something

asket on the floor. "You might 'a' kno

hock and ladar and romcandons. Me and the childern want to send you a crismas mess of some of all we lade in for to live on. They is pertaters 2 kines, onions, termaters, a jar vineger and a jar perservs. I boughten the pee

st widow's mite I ever saw. Put the basket there wit

laze; there was a restless, discontented look in her eyes that

afternoon! Mother is asleep; it's too early for cal

her lip and rolled he

und wif dat po' white trash fer? Why don' you set heah

atiently. She had begun disobeying Aun

in the theater lobby with Robert Redding she had found it necessary to make several visits to the Cabbage Patch, and the chief topic of conversation had been Mr. Bob: how he had taken them to the

shout greeted her. Billy let himself down f

" he cried. "One of 'em busted too

d hurt he couldn't shoot his gum-bow shooter and break Miss Krasmier's winder-pane. I'll be glad when to-morrow comes, an' he goes back to

he muff!" cri

!" shrieke

he muff was threatened with immediat

na, come here!" She lifted the wailing little girl to her lap, and looked he

Wiggs had long ago discovered the mo

as a piece of holly tied with a bit of red calico, and on the pa

all we wanted, an' got 'nough left fer the rest of the week, countin' hash an' soup an' all. Asia say

. This taciturn little girl, with her old, solemn face

the child dipped a brush into one o

ight to let 'em wash dishes an' clean up all the time. So I went to a store an' ast fer some paint to make pictures with, and they wanted seventy cents fer a little box full. Ain't that a mighty heap, Miss Lucy, jes' fer plain paint, 'fore it 's made up into flowers an' trees an' things? We

ard of the bed was a spray of what might have passed for cauliflower, the tin boiler was encircled by a wreath of impressionistic ros

rful!" said Lucy, wit

yes, when I see what my childern kin do! They inherit their education after Mr. Wiggs; he was so smart, an' b'longed to

keep a solemn face, as she

ad a good many of us to take keer of, an' after Mr. Wiggs had been keepin' company with me fer 'bout two weeks he drove up one night with a load of coal an' kindlin', an' called pa out to the fence. 'Mr. Smoot,' sez he, 'as long as I am courtin' your

n listening to the family reminiscences,

getting alon

me at night 'most dead. I give him money to rid

f him now?" Lucy blus

Billy is jes' crazy 'bout Mr. Bob; says he's goin' to be jes' like him when he grows up. He will, too, if he sets his head to it! Only

pon whose iridescent wings Asia was putting the f

see him!" went on Mrs.

fervor that Mrs. Wiggs paused on her wa

raping of feet

looking for you," said a man's voice. "I

and turned just a

ed Mrs. Wiggs, triumphantly; "she was

aradise had been presented to him, Redding could

of the past year she had persuaded herself that Redding no longer cared for her. To be t

is, Mrs. Wiggs?" she aske

the hostess, anxiously. "I wa

Lucy, hurriedly, "if

r the lost property. There was a deafening tumult in her heart, and tho

" announced Europena, wh

t tones, as Mrs. Wiggs dragged fort

am going that way." It was Redding's vo

y knowing what she said. Her one idea was t

alm, inscrutable; not a quiver of the mouth, not a flutter of the

watching the sc

," she said, apologetically;