Lovey Mary

								

"Oh, say, Miss Bell, please get some other girl! Tommy never would
like Lovey. He's just like me: if people ain't pretty, he don't have
no use for 'em."
"That will do, Kate," said Miss Bell, coldly. "It is only pity for the
child that makes me take him at all. You have forfeited all claim upon
our sympathy or patience. Mary, take the baby up-stairs and care for
him until I come."
Lovey Mary, hot with rebellion, picked him up and went out of the
room. At the door she stumbled against two little girls who were
listening at the keyhole.
Up-stairs in the long dormitory it was very quiet. The children had
been marched away to Sunday-school, and only Lovey Mary and the
sleeping baby were on the second floor. The girl sat beside the little
white bed and hated the world as far as she knew it: she hated Kate
for adding this last insult to the old score; she hated Miss Bell for
putting this new burden on her unwilling shoulders; she hated the
burden itself, lying there before her so serene and unconcerned; and
most of all she hated herself.
"I wisht I was dead!" she cried passionately. "The harder I try to be
good the meaner I get. Ever'body blames me, and ever'body makes fun of
me. Ugly old face, and ugly old hands, and straight old rat-tail hair!
It ain't no wonder that nobody loves me. I just wisht I was dead!"
The sunshine came through the window and made a big white patch on the
bare floor, but Lovey Mary sat in the shadow and disturbed the Sunday
quiet by her heavy sobbing.
At noon, when the children returned, the noise of their arrival woke
Tommy. He opened his round eyes on a strange world, and began to cry
lustily. One child after another tried to pacify him, but each
friendly advance increased his terror.
"Leave him be!" cried Lovey Mary. "Them hats is enough to skeer him
into fits." She picked him up, and with the knack born of experience
soothed and comforted him. The baby hid his face on her shoulder and
held her tight. She could feel the sobs that still shook the small
body, and his tears were on her cheek.
"Never mind," she said. "I ain't a-going to let 'em hurt you. I'm
going to take care of you. Don't cry any more. Look!"
She stretched forth her long, unshapely hand and made grotesque
snatches at the sunshine that poured in through the window. Tommy
hesitated and was lost; a smile struggled to the surface, then broke
through the tears.
"Look! He's laughing!" cried Lovey Mary, gleefully. "He's laughing
'cause I ketched a sunbeam for him!"
Then she bent impulsively and kissed the little red lips so close to
her own.

CHAPTER II
A RUNAWAY COUPLE

"Courage mounteth with occasion."
For two years Lovey Mary cared for Tommy: she bathed him and dressed
him, taught him to walk, and kissed his bumps to make them well; she
sewed for him and nursed him by day, and slept with him in her tired
arms at night. And Tommy, with the inscrutable philosophy of