CHAPTER XV.
MARY AND ELIZABETH VISIT SADIE SINGMASTER.
Farmer Landis, happening to mention at the breakfast table his intention of driving over to the "Ax Handle Factory" to obtain wood ashes to use as a fertilizer, his wife remarked, "Why not take Mary with you, John? She can stop at Singmaster's with a basket of carpet rags for Sadie. I've been wanting to send them over for some time." Turning to Mary, she said: "Poor little, crippled Sadie! On account of a fall, which injured her spine, when a small child, she has been unable to walk for years. She cuts and sews carpet rags, given her by friends and neighbors, and from their sale to a carpet weaver in a near-by town, helps her widowed mother eke out her small income."
"I'd love to go see her," said Mary. Elizabeth Schmidt also expressed her willingness to go, when asked, saying: "I am positive mother will add her contribution to the carpet rags for Sadie, I do pity her so very much."
"Yes," said Mary's Aunt, "she is poor and proud. She will not accept charity, so we persuade her to take carpet rags, as we have more than we can possibly use."
On reaching the Singmaster cottage, the girls alighted with their well-filled baskets, Mary's Uncle driving on to the "Ax Handle Factory," promising to call for the girls on his return. The sad, brown eyes of Sadie, too large for her pinched, sallow face, shone with pleasure at sight of the two young girls so near her own age, and she smiled her delight on examining the numerous bright-colored patches brought by them. Thinking the pleasure she so plainly showed might appear childish to the two girls, she explained: "I do get so dreadfully tired sewing together so many dull homely rags. I shall enjoy making balls of these pretty, bright colors."
"Sadie," Mary inquired, "will you think me inquisitive should I ask what the carpet weaver pays you for the rags when you have sewed and wound them into balls?"
"Certainly not," replied Sadie. "Four cents a pound is what he pays me. It takes two of these balls to make a pound," and she held up a ball she had just finished winding.
"Is that all you get?" exclaimed Elizabeth.