Just thirteen years before the day of the Tins' and Woods' battle, three poor tired old women, who had been wandering about the city in search of rags and what other things they could gather, met at the corner of the street in which they lived.
As they plodded on together—it was fast growing dark—they stumbled over something lying upon the sidewalk. Stooping to look at this something, they found a woman with a baby in her arms.
"I am dying," she whispered, "of cold and starvation."
The three poor old women carried her to their own miserable home, where she died in a short time.
"And what shall we do with the baby?" they asked each other. Then in one voice they answered themselves,
"It is a Christmas gift to us. We'll keep it, with God's help." They named the baby Adelaide, but that being too long a name for a tiny baby, it was soon shortened to Lady, and so the child came to be known as "Lady Rags."
After the coming of Lady Rags the shabby home grew brighter than any one seeing it before could have believed possible. The windows, once scarcely to be seen through for dust and cobwebs, were now washed often, so that the sunshine could come in and dance on the white wall for Lady. The floor was scrubbed almost every day, and a piece of red and green carpet was spread in one corner for her to play on. Here she played from morning until night with all the bright-colored rags and queer odds and ends the old women found or had given them, as happy as many a child in a splendid home with the costliest of toys. The three old crones gave up quarrelling as they used to, for that would have frightened Lady, and they learned to pray again—though they had forgotten how for long years—to pray for Lady.
"My mothers" she called them when she began to talk, and ever after, and they were so proud of the title that they tried their best to be worthy of it. Their scant gray locks began to be always carefully combed and half hidden beneath the whitest of caps; their well-worn garments were neatly patched with patches of many colors, and bits of black, brown, and other sober-hued ribbons were pinned at the wrinkled throats, and all to do honor to Lady.
As the child grew she became so beautiful that, had she been a princess instead of Lady Rags, her beauty would have been a wonder. And she was as good and clever as she was beautiful, and because of her many kindnesses to them, the boys of the triangle were her sworn subjects. Many the cut fingers she had dressed, many the bruises she had bathed, many the words of comfort and encouragement she had spoken, and many the prayers she had offered for the sick and suffering.
"Her prayers go straight to Heaven," said Jack Lubs. "Some people's don't."