Lovey Mary
Copyright© 2024 by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
Chapter 3: The Hazy Household
“Here sovereign Dirt erects her sable throne,
The house, the host, the hostess all her own.”
Miss Hazy was the submerged tenth of the Cabbage Patch. The submersion was mainly one of dirt and disorder, but Miss Hazy was such a meek, inefficient little body that the Cabbage Patch withheld its blame and patiently tried to furnish a prop for the clinging vine. Miss Hazy, it is true, had Chris; but Chris was unstable, not only because he had lost one leg, but also because he was the wildest, noisiest, most thoughtless youngster that ever shied a rock at a lamp-post. Miss Hazy had “raised” Chris, and the neighbors had raised Miss Hazy.
When Lovey Mary stumbled over the Hazy threshold with the sleeping Tommy and the duck in her arms, Miss Hazy fluttered about in dismay. She pushed the flour-sifter farther over on the bed and made a place for Tommy, then she got a chair for the exhausted girl and hovered about her with little chirps of consternation.
“Dear sakes! You’re done tuckered out, ain’t you? You an’ the baby got losted? Ain’t that too bad! Must I make you some tea? Only there ain’t no fire in the stove. Dear me! what ever will I do? Jes wait a minute; I’ll have to go ast Mis’ Wiggs.”
In a few minutes Miss Hazy returned. With her was a bright-faced little woman whose smile seemed to thaw out the frozen places in Lovey Mary’s heart and make her burst into tears on the motherly bosom.
“There now, there,” said Mrs. Wiggs, hugging the girl up close and patting her on the back; “there ain’t no hole so deep can’t somebody pull you out. An’ here’s me an’ Miss Hazy jes waitin’ to give you a h’ist.”
There was something so heartsome in her manner that Lovey Mary dried her eyes and attempted to explain. “I’m tryin’ to get a place,” she began, “but nobody wants to take Tommy too. I can’t carry him any further, and I don’t know where to go, and it’s ‘most night—” again the sobs choked her.
“Lawsee!” said Mrs. Wiggs, “don’t you let that worry you! I can’t take you home, ‘cause Asia an’ Australia an’ Europeny are sleepin’ in one bed as it is; but you kin git right in here with Miss Hazy, can’t she, Miss Hazy?”
The hostess, to whom Mrs. Wiggs was an oracle, acquiesced heartily.
“All right: that’s fixed. Now I’ll go home an’ send you all over some nice, hot supper by Billy, an’ to-morrow mornin’ will be time enough to think things out.”
Lovey Mary, too exhausted to mind the dirt, ate her supper off a broken plate, then climbed over behind Tommy and the flour-sifter, and was soon fast asleep.
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. It had come to be an unwritten law in the Cabbage Patch that as few questions as possible should be asked of strangers. People had come there before who could not give clear accounts of themselves.
“Now I’ll tell you what I think’ll be best,” said Mrs. Wiggs, who enjoyed untangling snarls. “Asia kin take Mary up to the fact’ry with her to-morrow, an’ see if she kin git her a job. I ‘spect she kin, ‘cause she stands right in with the lady boss. Miss Hazy, me an’ you kin keep a’ eye on the baby between us. If Mary gits a place she kin pay you so much a week, an’ that’ll help us all out, ‘cause then we won’t have to send in so many outside victuals. If she could make three dollars an’ Chris three, you all could git along right peart.”
Lovey Mary stayed in the house most of the day. She was almost afraid to look out of the little window, for fear she should see Miss Bell or Kate Rider coming. She sat in the only chair that had a bottom and diligently worked buttonholes for Miss Hazy.
“Looks like there ain’t never no time to clean up,” said Miss Hazy, apologetically, as she shoved Chris’s Sunday clothes and a can of coal-oil behind the door.
Lovey Mary looked about her and sighed deeply. The room was brimful and spilling over: trash, tin cans, and bottles overflowed the window- sills; a crippled rocking-chair, with a faded quilt over it, stood before the stove, in the open oven of which Chris’s shoe was drying; an old sewing-machine stood in the middle of the floor, with Miss Hazy’s sewing on one end of it and the uncleared dinner-dishes on the other.
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