“Peg,” Archibald said, “let’s call on Ezra Watts.”
She looked surprised, a bit doubtful, but her sporting blood rose.
“All right,” she agreed promptly. “He won’t let us neighbor and I expect
the dirt’s something terrible; but I’d just as soon.”
As they dismounted in front of the cottage, Ezra’s terrier came running
out of the door. He was barking, but not angrily—urgently rather.
“You’d think he was inviting us in,” Pegeen said, as she watched the dog
run toward the door, come back to bark eagerly, and run forward again.
“More hospitable than his master, I should say,” Archibald commented. “I
wonder if the man is home.”
They reached the door which stood partly open, and rapped on it.
No sound came from within. Archibald rapped again. The terrier ran
through the opening and barked encouragement across his shoulder.
“I believe something’s the matter,” said Pegeen suddenly. “Let’s go in.”
She pushed the door open and before Archibald could stop her stepped
inside. He followed her and they stood in a filthy little room that had
once been the parlor of the house. Moldy paper was hanging from the
walls. Much of the plaster had fallen from the ceiling and lay where it
fell. One or two rickety chairs were the only attempt at furnishing and
the accumulated dirt of years littered the floor.
No one was in sight, but the dog ran on into a back room and from there
the intruder heard a low mumbling voice.
“Stay here, Peg,” Archibald said authoritatively. “He’s drunk.”
But her instinct drove her quickly forward, in spite of his command.
“He’s sick,” she said.
Standing in the second doorway they looked into a room as dirty and
neglected as the first, but they did not notice walls or ceiling or
floor, for on a cot by the farther wall lay Ezra Watts, haggard,
ghastly, purple-faced, unseeing, tossing restlessly on an unspeakably
dirty bed and muttering meaningless things.
With a little cry of pity, Pegeen ran toward him, but Archibald caught
her in his arms and lifting her bodily, carried her into the next room.
“Listen, Peg,” he said quietly, as he put her down. “The man has fever.
There’s no telling what the disease is. I can’t have you taking chances.
You can help most by getting on Zip and riding down to Miss Moran’s to
telephone for Doctor Fullerton. Tell him what’s wrong and that I want
him at once. Then ask Miss Moran for some old linen she can spare and
some soap and bring them to me.”
“But you’re going to stay,” she protested.
“And who’ll take care of me if I get sick unless you keep in shape for
it?”
The argument was overwhelming. She allowed him to lift her to the saddle
and pelted away down the road at a breakneck pace, while Archibald went
back into the house.
He found an old stove in the kitchen and made a fire in it Then he
filled a kettle with fresh water and set it over the fire.
Whatever the doctor’s verdict was, hot water was sure to be needed in
that house.
Pegeen was back in a few minutes.
“Miss Moran and Mr. Meredith have gone motoring,” she said breathlessly,
as Archibald lifted her from the horse, “but Ellen’s coming. John’s
going to bring her over in the cart. I’ve got some sheets and towels and
a blanket and a cake of soap, but she’ll have more linen and scrubbing
brushes and lots of cleaning things. There comes the doctor now. I hear
his car.”
A muddy battered roadster came plunging up the crooked road at reckless
speed and a tall, wiry, competent-looking man sprang out of it.
“Just caught me. I was rolling out of the yard when they yelled after
me. Didn’t even have to crank up. So the germs have downed Ezra at last!
Nature does get back at a man in time. Lord, what a hole!”
He went briskly through the front room, growling anathemas at the
foulness, and bent over the tossing, muttering man on the bed with as
lively an interest as though the patient had not been the black sheep of
the Valley.
A body was a body to Dr. Fullerton, and his business was saving bodies.
The harder the battle, the greater his interest and enjoyment. As to the
value of the salvage to the community—that was the community’s
business.
“I’ll patch up the tenements,” he said to the gentle, nervous, little
Protestant minister in Pisgah. “It’s up to you and Father Rafferty to
see that your people lead decent lives in them.”—But when the little
man or the priest needed backing up with work or money, it was usually
Dr. Fullerton who lent the hand or the dollars.
He was all doctor as he examined Ezra Watts, keen eyed, deft fingered,
intent, but as he straightened himself and looked down at the dirty,
unshaven face, the keenness gave way to kindliness in his eyes.
“Nothing contagious,” he said shortly. “Pneumonia with some
complications. Not much show for him except in his tough constitution.
He never did drink, for all his cussedness; and that’s in his favor now.
Fed himself enough, such as it was and it was plain food with no
knick-knacks. That counts for him too. It’s the high-living, robust
fellows that wink out with pneumonia. Shouldn’t wonder if we’d pull him
through provided we can get him clean without killing him. Got to have a
scrubber and a nurse here and quick about it.”
“How about me?” Archibald asked. “Strong and willing at scrubbing and
nursing but not a professional in either line.”
“Call Peggy,” ordered the doctor. “She’s one of my best nurses; but you
and I’ll have to turn in and give him a bath before we hand him over to
her.”
Archibald found Pegeen fairly dancing with eagerness and impatience on
the doorstep. “Oh, my stars, I’m so glad it isn’t catching,” she said,
darting past him into the sick room. “I couldn’t have stood it not to be
able to see him. There’s such a splendid lot to do. It’s awful when
there isn’t anything you can do but sit around and wait. This is the
very best chance I ever had.”
“Well, you keep the fire roaring in the kitchen,” ordered the doctor,
“and warm some of those towels and the blanket for us and see that
there’s plenty of hot water. Archibald and I are going to give Ezra’s
system the worst shock it has had since childhood. After that’s over,
you can help us clean the front room a bit and move him in there.”
She flew into the kitchen with the towels and blanket, quick, noiseless,
radiant.
Dr. Fullerton grinned as he watched her go.
“Funny what a passion for seeing to people that youngster has,” he said,
“and what a corker she is at it, too. She’s helped me in some tight
places, child as she is. Once it was sewing a man up—bad mowing-machine
accident. His wife couldn’t stand by; but Peg could. White as a sheet,
but never batted an eye until she’d done all I needed. Then she went
away quietly into the yard and keeled over in a faint—but not till her
job was done, mind you. That’s Peg.”
Ellen and John arrived during the progress of the bath, and, within an
hour, the sick man lay between white, lavender-scented sheets in a room
that, while forlorn, was amazingly clean.
“When he comes out of the fever, he’ll think he’s died and gone to
hell,” Dr. Fullerton prophesied. “A clean eternity would be about the
worst future Ezra could figure out. Who’s going to look after him, while
I see to some of my other patients?”
“Me,” announced Peg, making up in enthusiasm what she lacked in grammer.
“Boots is at Mrs. Neal’s and it won’t hurt Wiggles and Spunky and
Peterkin to go without supper once, and Ellen’ll give you some supper,
Mr. Archibald. Won’t you, Ellen?”
“Miss Nora would want me to be staying here,” protested Ellen.
Archibald settled the question.
“Peg and I will stay,” he said, “and maybe Ellen will send John over
with a bite for us. We’ll have provisions in here by to-morrow and the
back room fit to be lived in. He couldn’t be moved, I suppose, Doctor?”
Dr. Fullerton shook his head.
“Finish him,” he said. “I’ll have Miss Kirby down from Albany to-morrow
morning. She’s the only nurse I know who likes cases of this sort—eats
’em up. Can’t be too bad for her. Only thing she balks at is a sick
millionaire. Abnormal woman, but a rattling good nurse.”
“Couldn’t I—” began Pegeen. She looked woefully disappointed.
“You couldn’t.” The doctor was firm. “Not until after he’s over the
ridge one way or the other. Then there’ll be enough for you and anybody
that applies. Just shows what a frost virtue is. I’ve had highly
respectable patients neglected and here’s a spirited contest for the
privilege of taking care of Ezra, who’s as worthless a customer as you’d
find in a day’s journey.”
“Oh, Doctor, he’s so sick!” Pegeen was distressed, shocked.
“But he’s not dead. It’s only after they’re dead that we can’t speak ill
of them. I’m not going to let Ezra die, so I feel perfectly free to tell
the truth about him. There’s the medicine. Nothing much to do at this
stage of the game. I’ll be back in an hour and bring a tank of oxygen
down to have it handy. Don’t you fret, Peggy. He’s going to rob many a
hen-roost yet.”
He went away, driving in utter defiance of the speed laws. John and
Ellen drove off home, and Peg and Archibald sat down in two of the
rickety chairs near the bed upon which the transformed Ezra lay,
breathing heavily.
“This, Miss Pegeen O’Neill, is what comes of neighboring,” said
Archibald.
“Yes; isn’t it splendid?” Peg was important, shiny-eyed.
“Well, come to think of it, I don’t know but what it is,” admitted the
man.
“Doesn’t he look different when he’s clean?”—Pegeen lowered her voice
to sick-room pitch, but she was too excited to keep still and Ezra would
not hear.
“Even so he’s not beautiful,”—Archibald studied the face on the pillow
as he spoke. A weak, evil face it was even now when the man’s spirit did
not look out through his eyes, but Peg’s tender heart could not find
helplessness quite unbeautiful.
“I sort of think he was a good looking little boy,” she said. “His nose
is straight and nice and his mouth could have been real sweet if he
hadn’t spoiled it. I shouldn’t wonder a bit if his mother’d been awfully
proud of him when she got him all fixed up to go somewhere.”
Her face was wistful, sweet with pity for the little boy of the long
ago, whom life had wrecked, and the picture her words had called up made
Archibald look at the sick man with kinder eyes.
“Oh, Peg! Peg!” he murmured softly, “what a friend to sinners and
weaklings you are!”
“They’ve got to have friends,” said Pegeen.
The doctor came back after a while. The Smiling Lady and Richard
Meredith came too, and Mrs. Benderby, after her day of ironing and her
three-mile walk home, toiled up the Back Road to see if there was
anything she could do to help. Mr. Neal rode over and offered to spend
the night, but, in the end, Archibald and the doctor stayed. Pegeen,
protesting stoutly, was carried off home by Miss Moran.
“Nothing you could do to-night, Peggy,” said the doctor. “Save your
ammunition.”
Life and Death stood beside the bed in the little house on the Back Road
that night; but it was Death who turned and went away in the gray of the
morning.
“He’ll do now,” said the doctor, “but it was touch and go for a while.
The oxygen held him. Sometimes I wonder—”
His strong jaw set once more in fighting grimness— “But it isn’t up to
me to wonder. Beating Death, in a catch-as-catch-can, is my end of the
job, and I rather think I’ve downed him this time. What life will do
with the man is another story.”
“I’d like to help tell the story,”—Archibald had never stood by in such
a fight as the doctor had fought that night and the experience had left
him with a humble consciousness of his own uselessness, a strong desire
to play a manlier part.
Dr. Fullerton looked at him sharply from under heavy eyebrows that gave
his face a misleading fierceness.
“Don’t sentimentalize, man,” he said bluntly. “It takes people that way
sometimes—running up against Death and barely slamming the door in his
face—but don’t imagine the close shave will change Ezra any more than
his bath will. He’ll be as mean and as dirty as ever in a few weeks.
We’ve done our damnedest for him to-night, but we’re the ones benefited
by it. Life’s a doubtful blessing to Ezra. Help him if you want to, but
do it with your eyes open and because you want to, not because you
expect to reform him. He isn’t the reforming kind.”
Archibald thought his words over after he had gone. Probably they were
true—but on their heels came other words. “I believe there’s a decent
scrap of Soul hidden away somewhere in Ezra, hidden so deep that he
himself doesn’t suspect it’s there,” Nora Moran had said.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit if his mother had been awfully proud of him.”
It was Pegeen who had said that.
Who could tell? One needn’t sentimentalize, but one might as well give a
man the benefit of the doubt. That was neighboring.
The nurse from Albany came and ate up the case, according to prophecy,
but in a few days she went away to meet direr needs, and then Pegeen’s
turn came. She was in her element, and Ezra, a limp edition of his
former self, showed a flattering satisfaction in the change from Miss
Kirby’s ministrations to Peggy’s. Surliness was as natural to him as
breathing and he was no angel patient; but it was quite useless to be
surly with Peg. She ignored it, and went her cheerful, tolerant way,
coddling, coaxing, encouraging, tyrannizing, amusing, unmoved by
stubbornness or rudeness or anger or ingratitude, obeying the doctor’s
orders and, where the orders ended, “seeing to” Ezra according to her
own ideas of the way the thing should be done.
Archibald, and Miss Moran, and Mrs. Benderby, stayed with her in turn,
but the case was hers, and Dr. Fullerton always addressed her as “Nurse
O’Neill,” to her profound satisfaction.
Archibald missed her miserably at the shack. Mrs. Benderby was looking
after him. She had called the doctor in as he drove by one evening
during the first week of Ezra’s illness; and after an examination he had
told her kindly but frankly that her days for hard work were over.
“You may live for many years,” he said; “live comfortably, too, but no
more washing and ironing and scrubbing, Mrs. Benderby. We’ll have to
find something easier for you to do.”
He spoke as though finding it would be the simplest matter imaginable
and indeed it proved so; for Archibald, temporarily bereft of Peggy and
robbed of self-reliance through many weeks of being “seen to” by that
young person, was desperately in need of feminine ministrations.
“Just the thing for you,” the doctor said heartily, as he told Mrs.
Benderby of Archibald’s forlorn plight “When Peg gets through with Ezra
we’ll have something else for you.” So there were good meals and
cleanliness at the shack, but oh, the loneliness of the place! Mrs.
Benderby was devoted, she was kind, but she had her limitations. Pegeen,
so it seemed to Archibald as he sighed for her, had none. He was lonely
without her, infernally lonely, and he told her so. She was distressed
about it, but Ezra needed her most and that settled the matter so far as
she was concerned.
“I’m homesick. I’m most crazy to go home,” she confessed, “but I
wouldn’t for anything. Sometimes I think he most likes me; but he’s
dreadfully ashamed of it. He’s dreadfully ashamed of any nice feeling he
has. Isn’t that funny? After he says anything pleasant, he swears right
off quick for fear you’ll think he meant it. I do wish I could get him
used to being nice so it wouldn’t hurt him the way it does.”
Even Pegeen could not quite achieve that—Ezra progressed to the point
of being nice occasionally but it always hurt him, and only to Peggy did
he even make the concession of being very intermittently “nice.”
For Archibald and the doctor and all the rest he wore as lowering a face
and as ungracious a manner as though they had been cruelly abusing him
instead of saving his life and paying his expenses. Archibald found the
thing rather discouraging, but Dr. Fullerton laughed over it
unconcernedly.
“Great Scott, man,” he said, when they talked of it one day after a
visit to the rapidly convalescing invalid, “I don’t pull my patients
through because I expect gratitude. I do it because it’s playing the
game. That’s the only satisfaction that amounts to anything. Pick out a
white man’s game and play it for all there is in you. Then life’s worth
living.”
X
The day came when Ezra was well enough to shift for himself and he gave
every one—including Pegeen—to understand that he was glad to be rid of
intruders.
“It’ll seem mighty good to get back to living as I please,” he said, as
Peg, calmly autocratic to the last, gave him a dose of medicine before
joining the doctor who was waiting to drive her home.
“I’ll bet it doesn’t.” She was amiable but positive. “You’ll hate it and
I’m sorry you’ve got to do it, but I think maybe you’ll take better care
of yourself than you did. Don’t forget your medicine after meals. If you
get into any trouble I’ll come over and see to you.”
Ezra grunted derision, but she held out her hand and smiled up at him so
whole-heartedly that he was surprised into an answering smile.
“You’re a queer one,” he said, “but you’re better than most.” It was
grudging, inadequate, but coming from Ezra it was glowing tribute, and
Peggy went out to the car in high spirits.
“I’m going to miss Ezra,” she said as the doctor tucked her in. “Of
course he isn’t like Mr. Archibald, but I’ve got real fond of him.”
“Holy Smoke!” commented Dr. Fullerton.
“I have,” she insisted, “and I’m sure now that he likes me. He said I
was better than most. That’s a lot for Ezra to say.”
“It’s impassioned eulogy,” said the doctor,—“but, Peg, speaking in cold
blood, as doctor to nurse and without any of Ezra’s overflowing
sentiment, I’ll admit that you _are_ better than most. You really ought
to be trained for a nurse, Peg.”
The small girl’s face flushed with happiness at the praise.
“It’d be lovely,” she said, “but I can’t, because I’m going to be
married and I guess my own children will keep me pretty busy. I do hope
they’ll have measles and whooping cough and all those things early. It’s
so much better, isn’t it? And it’ll take a lot of time for eight of them
to have everything.”
“That’s a fact. It will,” agreed the doctor. “You’re counting on eight?”
She nodded.
“Yes; I guess that’s enough unless you have perfect stacks of money. I
want them all to go to school. School’s so lovely. I’d have liked
awfully to go more, but there was always somebody to see to.”
Dr. Fullerton gave her arm an affectionate little squeeze.
“You know more than any of the rest of us as it is, Peg. Schooling you
would have been ‘gilding refined gold and painting the lily.’ I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. I’ll undertake to see all eight of those children
through whooping cough and measles and any blamed thing they choose to
have and I won’t charge you a cent for it.”
Pegeen looked immeasurably relieved.
“That’ll be perfectly splendid,” she said happily. “Doctor’s bills do
make lots of trouble.”
“They trouble the doctors.”
Dr. Fullerton grinned ruefully as he admitted it. A very large
percentage of his patients showed absolutely no interest in his bills
when he sent them.
Archibald and Wiggles were waiting for Pegeen at the meadow bars and
each welcomed her after his own fashion. Wiggles was the more exuberant
of the two. Only by sheer force was he kept from meeting a sudden and
violent death in his wild effort to climb into the car before it
stopped; and when the small girl finally stood by the roadside, he gave
an exhibition of hysterical affection ill befitting one of his stern
sex. Archibald merely took his pipe from his mouth and came forward to
lift Peg from the car, with a quiet, “Well, here you are, Nurse
O’Neill,” but the satisfaction in his face was good to see, and Dr.
Fullerton chuckled over it as he went spinning on down the Valley.
“That youngster has lit on her feet,” he told himself contentedly.
“Hanging over those bars watching for her, for an hour, I’ll bet. Wonder
how much money the man has anyway.”
Meanwhile the three he had left behind on the roadside were going
happily up the meadow slope to the shack. Archibald and Peg went hand in
hand and, as usual, she accommodated her pace to his long easy stride by
a system of two steps and a skip, while Wiggles gyrated excitedly about
the two, yelping his joy.
“Glad to come home, child?” the man asked.
She squeezed his hand lovingly.
“I’m so glad I’d like to do what Wiggles is doing,” she said. “I feel as
if I’d been away two months instead of two weeks.”
“Make it two years,” he amended. “That’s the length of time I’ve spent
missing you. What did I do before you happened to me, Peg?”
“You needed seeing to. Gracious! You’ve been doing something to the
house!”
He looked just a trifle embarrassed, doubtful.
“See here, Peg,” he said bluntly. “I never did like your trotting back
and forth night and morning and looking after Mrs. Benderby at all sorts
of unearthly hours.”
“That doesn’t hurt me,” she protested.
“Well, it hurt me and things are different now. I didn’t tell you about
Mrs. Benderby because I thought it might worry you, but Dr. Fullerton
says she has to stop going out by the day.—Not seriously ill, you know,
but she’ll have to let up on very hard work.”
“Oh, dear, isn’t that dreadful.” Pegeen’s eyes were flooded with
anxiety. “Isn’t it lucky I’ve got some money? The rent’s seven dollars
and then meals—but I’ll have plenty this summer and then maybe she’ll
be better, and—”
“Bless your dear heart,” Archibald interrupted. “You aren’t going to
spend your money on her. I’ll look out for her—glad to—only it seemed
to me—she’s got used to being up here now and seems to like it and she
could relieve you of the cooking—and I don’t know how you feel about
it, but I thought I’d like to have both of you stay here with me. I had
the carpenter knock up a couple of rooms at the side of the shack.”
She stopped in the path and stared at him, shining eyed, wondering.
“Oh, my stars!” she said in a hushed little voice. “My stars!”
“Don’t you like the idea?” he asked anxiously.
“Like it!” The wonder in her face broke up into little ripples of
delight. “Like it! Why it’s perfectly splendid! It’s the loveliest thing
I ever heard of! I could sit down and cry the way I did when the
larkspur happened—but think of you wanting us—Mrs. Benderby too! And
everybody thought you didn’t like folks at all!”
“I thought so myself,” admitted Archibald; “but you see I hadn’t ever
really known anyone.”
“Well, I’ve got to run. I’ve simply got to. Walking’s no good when you
feel the way I do, and I can’t wait to see the new rooms.”
She scampered off up the path, with Wiggles barking joyously before her,
and when Archibald reached the shack at a more leisurely gait she had
inspected the new rooms and was sitting in the living-room, Wiggles at
her feet, Boots in her lap, and Spunky on her shoulder, while Mrs.
Benderby stood with her hands on her hips looking down adoringly at the
Small Person in the chair.
“I’m home! I’m home! I’m home!” Pegeen was singing to the laughing baby.
“We’re all home now,” Archibald said, as he stood in the doorway and
looked at her. “You _are_ the home, Peggy child.”
Supper that night was a party. The Smiling Lady had sent John over with
a big bunch of glorious blue larkspur. “Peg’s ‘glad’ flower is the
flower for you all, to-night,” said the word that came with it.
And Mrs. Benderby had made a cake with pink icing and an amazing design
in little red candies around the edge of it, and there was ice cream, a
contribution from Mrs. Neal.
“It’s like a birthday—only I never had this kind of a birthday,” said
Pegeen, as she beamed across the blue flowers that, for all their
gladness, were not so glad as her face, while Mrs. Benderby, torn
between her ideal of the solemnity appropriate in waiting on a city
gentleman and her sympathetic joy, hovered round the table with relays
of hot biscuit and fried chicken, and Wiggles, having been
surreptitiously presented with a chicken leg, by Peg—a thing entirely
against her own rules—sat on his haunches and begged for more.
Boots was asleep in the hammock and Spunky, true to feline type, assumed
a profound indifference and sat on the hearth with her front paws folded
cozily under her and a bored look on her little gray face.
“You are going to have this kind of birthdays from now on—only more
so,” Archibald announced. “This is just an unbirthday party. Wait till
you see your birthday party. When _is_ your birthday, Peg?”
“September—the fifteenth. I’m glad I wasn’t born in winter. Spring
would have been nicest. I’d have liked being born along with everything
else.”
Archibald dissented.
“Wouldn’t have done at all,” he said firmly. “You were special—extra
special. Autumn needed you to keep it from being sad.”
Mrs. Benderby wouldn’t allow Pegeen to help with the dishes.
“Other nights, maybe, if you want to, but not to-night,” she insisted.
So, as the afterglow faded and the stars came out to look at a blithe
new moon Archibald and Peg sat once more on their familiar doorstep. For
a time they were both silent, listening to the night noises, watching
the play of moonlight and starlight across the meadow and the clutching
shadows on the wood’s edge.
“I wonder if Ezra took his medicine after supper,” Pegeen said suddenly.
“I’d most forgotten about him. Being terribly happy’s sort of selfish,
isn’t it?”
“Not when you are making other people happy by being happy, and you are
doing that.”
She pressed her cheek against his shoulder for an instant.
“Well, being so happy was what made me remember Ezra. I suppose he
doesn’t know what it feels like. You see, he can’t; because he doesn’t
love anybody. You can’t have the real, soaked-in, choky kind of being
happy unless you love somebody a whole lot and feel sure the somebody
loves you. I tried awfully hard to love Ezra. I did honestly, and I did
get real fond of him, but you can’t exactly love anybody that won’t be
lovable. You can feel sorry and kind and everything like that, but
loving’s different. I guess God’s the only one that can go right ahead
and love everybody no matter what they’re like. It doesn’t make any
difference about sinners. I could love sinners just as quick as scat, if
they were nice sinners that would love back; but I’m afraid God will
have to do the loving with Ezra. I can’t get any further than liking
him, even if he does swear and act ugly. I do hope he’ll take his
medicine and change the sheets.”
“Well, he won’t,” said Archibald encouragingly. “Ezra’s now engaged in
going back to the blanket literally and figuratively, but don’t fret
about him, Peg. We’ll do all we can for him, but you’re back on your old
job now and you’ll have to give your whole time and attention to seeing
to me.”
“And Mrs. Benderby and Boots and Wiggles and Spunky,” added Pegeen.
“Isn’t it a lovely family!—and just think of my having you all right
here together—not having to go away to see Mrs. Benderby or take Boots
home nights or anything. I used to hate leaving you and sometimes I’d
wake up in the night and worry for fear you’d get sick here all alone
with nobody to see to you, and I’d always hurry as fast as I could,
coming up in the morning for fear something had happened.”
“Bless you!” Archibald rumpled the thick black hair with an affectionate
hand. “I hated being left alone myself, not because I was afraid of
anything happening but because the place was forlorn without you. Peggy,
Peggy! How you do creep into hearts and settle down to housekeeping in
them!”