"Lawsee! Miss Hazy, what do you think he'll think of yer figger? Have you got so much to brag on, that you kin go to pickin' him to pieces? Do you suppose I'd 'a' dared to judge Mr. Wiggs that away? Why, Mr. Wiggs's nose was as long as a clothespin; but I would no more 'a' thought of his nose without him than I would 'a' thought of him without the nose."
"Well, what do you think I'd orter do 'bout it?" asked Miss Hazy.
"I ain't quite made up my mind," said her mentor. "I'll talk it over with the neighbors. But I 'spect, if we kin skeer up a quarter, that you'll answer by the mornin's mail."
That night Lovey Mary sat in her little attic room and held Tommy close to her hungry heart. All day she worked with the thought of coming back to him at night; but with night came the dustman, and in spite of her games and stories Tommy's blue eyes would get full of the sleep-dust. Tonight, however, he was awake and talkative.
"Ain't I dot no muvver?" he asked.
"No," said Lovey Mary, after a pause.
"Didn't I never had no muvver?"
Lovey Mary sat him up in her lap and looked into his round, inquiring eyes. Her very love for him hardened her heart against the one who had wronged him.
"Yes, darling, you had a mother once, but she was a bad mother, a mean, bad, wicked mother. I hate her—hate her!" Lovey Mary's voice broke in a sob.
"Ma—ry; aw, Ma—ry!" called Miss Hazy up the stairs. "You'll have to come down here to Chris. He's went to sleep with all his clothes on 'crost my bed, an' I can't git him up."