[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.