Lovey Mary
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 14: The Cactus Blooms
“I tell thee love is nature’s second sun,
Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.”
It was June again, and once more Lovey Mary stood at an up-stairs window at the home. On the ledge grew a row of bright flowers, brought from Miss Viny’s garden, but they were no brighter than the face that smiled across them at the small boy in the playground below. Lovey Mary’s sleeves were rolled above her elbows, and a dust-cloth was tied about her head. As she returned to her sweeping she sang joyfully, contentedly:
“Can she sweep a kitchen floor,
Billy boy, Billy boy?
Can she sweep a kitchen floor,
Charming Billy?”
“Miss Bell says for you to come down to the office,” announced a little girl, coming up the steps. “There’s a lady there and a baby.”
Lovey Mary paused in her work, and a shadow passed over her face. Just three years ago the same summons had come, and with it such heartaches and anxiety. She pulled down her sleeves and went thoughtfully down the steps. At the office door she found Mrs. Redding talking to Miss Bell.
“We leave Saturday afternoon,” she was saying. “It’s rather sooner than we expected, but we want to get the baby to Canada before the hot weather overtakes us. Last summer I asked two children from the Toronto home to spend two weeks with me at our summer place, but this year I have set my heart on taking Lovey Mary and Tommy. They will see Niagara Falls and Buffalo, where we stop over a day, besides the little outing at the lake. Will you come, Mary? You know Robert might get choked again!”
Lovey Mary leaned against the door for support. A half-hour visit to Mrs. Redding was excitement for a week, and only to think of going away with her, and riding on a steam-car, and seeing a lake, and taking Tommy, and being ever so small a part of that gorgeous Redding household! She could not speak; she just looked up and smiled, but the smile seemed to mean more than words, for it brought the sudden tears to Mrs. Redding’s eyes. She gave Mary’s hand a quick, understanding little squeeze, then hurried out to her carriage.
That very afternoon Lovey Mary went to the Cabbage Patch. As she hurried along over the familiar ground, she felt as if she must sing aloud the happy song that was humming in her heart. She wanted to stop at each cottage and tell the good news; but her time was limited, so she kept on her way to Miss Hazy’s, merely calling out a greeting as she passed. When she reached the door she heard Mrs. Wiggs’s voice in animated conversation.
“Well, I wish you’d look! There she is, this very minute! I never was so glad to see anybody in my life! My goodness, child, you don’t know how we miss you down here! We talk ‘bout you all the time, jes like a person puts their tongue in the empty place after a tooth’s done pulled out.”
“I’m awful glad to be back,” said Lovey Mary, too happy to be cast down by the reversion to the original state of the Hazy household.
“Me an’ Chris ain’t had a comfortable day sence you left,” complained Miss Hazy. “I’d ‘a’ almost rather you wouldn’t ‘a’ came than to have went away ag’in.”
“But listen!” cried Lovey Mary, unable to keep her news another minute. “I’m a-going on a railroad trip with Mrs. Redding, and she’s going to take Tommy, too, and we are going to see Niag’ra and a lake and a buffalo!”
“Ain’t that the grandest thing fer her to go and do!” exclaimed Mrs.
Wiggs. “I told you she was a’ angel!”
“I’m right skeered of these here long trips,” said Miss Hazy, “so many accidents these days.”
“My sakes!” answered Mrs. Wiggs, “I’d think you’d be ‘fraid to step over a crack in the floor fer fear you’d fall through. Why, Lovey Mary, it’s the nicest thing I ever heared tell of! An’ Niag’ry Fall, too. I went on a trip once when I was little. Maw took me through the mountains. I never had seen mountains before, an’ I cried at first an’ begged her to make ‘em sit down. A trip is something you never will fergit in all yer life. It was jes like Mrs. Reddin’ to think about it; but I don’t wonder she feels good to you. Asia says she never expects to see anything like the way you shook that candy outen little Robert. But see here, if you go ‘way off there you mustn’t fergit us.”