REACTION
"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie."
When the paint and powder had been washed off, and Tommy had with
difficulty been extracted from his new trousers and put to bed, Lovey
Mary sat before the little stove and thought it all over. It had been
the very happiest time of her whole life. How nice it was to be
praised and made much of! Mrs. Wiggs had started it by calling
everybody's attention to her good points; then Mrs. Redding had sought
her out and shown her continued attention; to-night was the great
climax. Her name had been on every tongue, her praises sung on every
side, and Billy Wiggs had given her everything he got off the
Christmas tree.
"I wisht I deserved it all," she said, as she got up to pull the
blanket closer about Tommy. "I've tried to be good. I guess I am
better in some ways, but not in all--not in all." She knelt by the bed
and held Tommy's hand to her cheek. "Sometimes he looks like Kate when
he's asleep like this. I wonder if she's got well? I wonder if she
ever misses him?"
For a long time she knelt there, holding the warm little hand in hers.
The play, the success, the applause, were all forgotten, and in their
place was a shame, a humiliation, that brought the hot tears to her
eyes.
"I ain't what they think I am," she whispered brokenly. "I'm a mean,
bad girl after all. The canker-worm's there. Miss Viny said there
never would be a sure-'nough beautiful flower till the canker-worm was
killed. But I want to be good; I want to be what they think I am!"
Again and again the old thoughts of Kate rose to taunt and madden her.
But a new power was at work; it brought new thoughts of Kate, of Kate
sick and helpless, of Kate without friends and lonely, calling for her
baby. Through the night the battle raged within her. When the first
gray streaks showed through the shutters, Lovey Mary cleaned her room
and put on her Sunday dress. "I'll be a little late to the factory,"
she explained to Miss Hazy at breakfast, "for I've got to go on a'
errand."
It was an early hour for visitors at the city hospital, but when Lovey
Mary stated her business she was shown to Kate's ward. At the far end
of the long room, with her bandaged head turned to the wall, lay Kate.
When the nurse spoke to her she turned her head painfully, and looked
at them listlessly with great black eyes that stared forth from a face
wasted and wan from suffering.
"Kate!" said Lovey Mary, leaning across the bed and touching her hand.
"Kate, don't you know me?"
The pale lips tightened over the prominent white teeth. "Well, I swan,
Lovey Mary, where'd you come from?" Not waiting for an answer, she
continued querulously: "Say, can't you get me out of this hole
someway? But even if I had the strength to crawl, I wouldn't have no
place to go. Can't you take me away? Anywhere would do."
Lovey Mary's spirits fell; she had nerved herself for a great
sacrifice, had decided to do her duty at any cost; but thinking of it
beforehand in her little garret room, with Tommy's hand in hers, and
Kate Rider a mere abstraction, was very different from facing the real
issue, with the old, selfish, heartless Kate in flesh and blood before
her. She let go of Kate's hand.
"Don't you want to know about Tommy?" she asked. "I've come to say I
was sorry I run off with him."
"It was mighty nervy in you. I knew you'd take good care of him,
though. But say! you can get me away from this, can't you? I ain't got
a friend in the world nor a cent of money. But I ain't going to stay
here, where there ain't nothing to do, and I get so lonesome I 'most
die. I'd rather set on a street corner and run a hand-organ. Where are
you and Tommy at?"
"We are in the Cabbage Patch," said Lovey Mary, with the old repulsion
strong upon her.
"Where?"
"The Cabbage Patch. It ain't your sort of a place, Kate. The folks are
good and honest, but they are poor and plain. You'd laugh at 'em."
Kate turned her eyes to the window and was silent a moment before she
said slowly:
"I ain't got much right to laugh at nobody. I'd be sorter glad to get
with good people again. The other sort's all right when you're out for
fun, but when you're down on your luck they ain't there."
Lovey Mary, perplexed and troubled, looked at her gravely.
"Haven't you got any place you could go to?"
[Illustration: "'Haven't you got any place you could go to?'"]
Kate shook her head. "Nobody would be willing to look after me and
nurse me. Lovey,"--she stretched her thin hand across to her
entreatingly,--"take me home with you! I heard the doctor tell the
nurse he couldn't do nothing more for me. I can't die here shut up
with all these sick people. Take me wherever you are at. I'll try not
to be no trouble, and--I want to keep straight."
Tears were in her eyes, and her lips trembled. There was a queer
little spasm at Lovey Mary's heart. The canker-worm was dead.
When a carriage drove up to Miss Hazy's door and the driver carried in
a pale girl with a bandaged head, it caused untold commotion.
"Do you s'pose Mary's a-bringin' home a smallpox patient?" asked Miss
Hazy, who was ever prone to look upon the tragic side.
"Naw!" said Chris, who was peeping under the window-curtain; "it looks
more like she's busted her crust."
In less than an hour every neighbor had been in to find out what was
going on. Mrs. Wiggs constituted herself mistress of ceremonies. She
had heard the whole story from the overburdened Mary, and was now
prepared to direct public opinion in the way it should go.
"Jes another boarder for Miss Hazy," she explained airily to Mrs.
Eichorn. "Lovey Mary was so well pleased with her boardin'-house, she
drummed it up among her friends. This here lady has been at the
hospittal. She got knocked over by a wagon out there near the factory,
an' it run into celebrated concussion. The nurse told Lovey Mary this
mornin' it was somethin' like information of the brain. What we're all
goin' to do is to try to get her well. I'm a-goin' home now to git her
a nice dinner, an' I jes bet some of you'll see to it that she gits a
good supper. You kin jes bank on us knowin' how to give a stranger a
welcome!"
It was easy to establish a precedent in the Cabbage Patch. When a
certain course of action was once understood to be the proper thing,
every resident promptly fell in line. The victim of "celebrated
concussion" was overwhelmed with attention. She lay in a pink wrapper
in Miss Hazy's kitchen, and received the homage of the neighborhood.
Meanwhile Lovey Mary worked extra hours at the factory and did sewing
at night to pay for Kate's board.
In spite, however, of the kind treatment and the regular
administration of Miss Viny's herbs and Mrs. Wiggs's yellowroot, Kate
grew weaker day by day. One stormy night when Lovey Mary came home
from the factory she found her burning with fever and talking
excitedly. Miss Hazy had gotten her up-stairs, and now stood
helplessly wringing her hands in the doorway.
"Lor', Lovey Mary! she's cuttin' up scandalous," complained the old
lady. "I done ever'thing I knowed how; I ironed the sheets to make 'em
warm, an' I tried my best to git her to swallow a mustard cocktail. I
wanted her to lemme put a fly-blister on to her head, too, but she
won't do nothin'."
"All right, Miss Hazy," said Lovey Mary, hanging her dripping coat on
a nail. "I'll stay with her now. Don't talk, Kate! Try to be still."
"But I can't, Lovey. I'm going to die, and I ain't fit to die. I've
been so bad and wicked, I'm 'fraid to go, Lovey. What'll I do? What'll
I do?"
In vain the girl tried to soothe her. Her hysteria increased; she
cried and raved and threw herself from side to side.
"Kate! Kate!" pleaded Lovey Mary, trying to hold her arms, "don't cry
so. God'll forgive you. He will, if you are sorry."
"But I'm afraid," shuddered Kate. "I've been so bad. Heaven knows I'm
sorry, but it's too late! Too late!" Another paroxysm seized her, and
her cries burst forth afresh.
Mary, in desperation, rushed from the room. "Tommy!" she called softly
down the steps.
The small boy was sitting on the stairs, in round-eyed wonder at what
was going on.
"Tommy," said Lovey Mary, picking him up, "the sick lady feels so bad!
Go in and give her a love, darling. Pet her cheeks and hug her like
you do me. Tell her she's a pretty mama. Tell her you love her."
Tommy trotted obediently into the low room and climbed on the bed. He
put his plump cheek against the thin one, and whispered words of baby-
love. Kate's muscles relaxed as her arms folded about him. Gradually
her sobs ceased and her pulse grew faint and fainter. Outside, the
rain and sleet beat on the cracked window-pane, but a peace had
entered the dingy little room. Kate received the great summons with a
smile, for in one fleeting moment she had felt for the first and last
time the blessed sanctity of motherhood.