The Turn of the Tide
Copyright© 2024 by Eleanor H. Porter
Chapter 17
“Stars—t’ank lucky stars,” Maggie was still shouting gleefully when she reached her mother’s side.
Mrs. Durgin bent keen eyes on her young daughter’s face.
“Maggie, what was they sayin’ to ye?” she began, pulling the little girl into the house. Suddenly her jaw dropped. She stooped and clutched the child’s hands. “Why, Maggie, it’s money—stacks of it!” she exclaimed, prying open the small fingers.
“Stars—lucky stars!” cooed Maggie. Maggie liked new words and phrases, and she always said them over and over until they were new no longer.
Mrs. Durgin shook her daughter gently, yet determinedly. Her small black eyes looked almost large, so wide were they with amazement.
“Maggie, Maggie, tell me—what did they say to ye?” she demanded again. “Why did they give ye all this money?”
Maggie was silent. Her brow was drawn into a thoughtful frown.
“But, Maggie, think—there must ‘a’ been somethin’. What did ye do?”
“There wa’n’t,” insisted the child. “I jest felled down an’ got up, an’ they said it.”
“Said what?”
“‘T’ank lucky stars.’”
A sudden thought sent a quick flash of fear to Mrs. Durgin’s eyes.
“Maggie, they didn’t hurt ye,” she cried, dropping on her knees and running swift, anxious fingers over the thin little arms and legs and body. “They didn’t hurt ye!”
Maggie shook her head. At that moment a shadow darkened the doorway, and the kneeling woman glanced up hastily.
“Oh, it’s you, Mis’ Magoon,” she said to the small, tired-looking woman in the doorway.
“Yes, it’s me,” sighed the woman, dragging herself across the room to a chair. “What time did Nellie leave here?”
“Why, I dunno—mebbe four o’clock. Why?”
The woman’s face contracted with a sharp spasm of pain.
“She wa’n’t within half a mile of the mill when I met her, yet she was pantin’ an’ all out o’ breath then. She’ll be late, ‘course, an’ you know what that means.”
“Yes, I know,” sighed Mrs. Durgin, sympathetically. “She—she hadn’t orter gone.”
Across the room Mrs. Magoon’s head came up with a jerk.
“Don’t ye s’pose I know that? The child’s sick, an’ I know it. But what diff’rence does that make? She works, don’t she?”
For a moment Mrs. Durgin did not speak. Gradually her eyes drifted back to Maggie and the little pile of coins on the table.
“Mis’ Magoon, see,” she cried eagerly, “what the lady give Maggie. They was in one o’ them ‘nauty-mobiles,’ as Maggie calls ‘em, an’ Maggie felled down in the road. She wa’n’t hurt a mite—not even scratched, but they give her all this money.”
The woman on the other side of the room sniffed disdainfully.
“Well, what of it? They’d oughter give it to her,” she asserted.
“But they wa’n’t ter blame, an’ they didn’t hurt her none—not a mite,” argued the other.
“No thanks ter them, I’ll warrant,” snapped Mrs. Magoon. “For my part, I wouldn’t tech their old money.” Then, crossly, but with undeniable interest, she asked: “How much was it?”
Mrs. Durgin laughed.
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