Lovey Mary

								

childhood, accepted his little foster-mother and gave her his all.
One bright June afternoon the two were romping in the home yard under
the beech-trees. Lovey Mary lay in the grass, while Tommy threw
handfuls of leaves in her face, laughing with delight at her grimaces.
Presently the gate clicked, and some one came toward them.
"Good land! is that my kid?" said a woman's voice. "Come here, Tom,
and kiss your mother."
Lovey Mary, sitting up, found Kate Rider, in frills and ribbons,
looking with surprise at the sturdy child before her.
Tommy objected violently to this sudden overture and declined
positively to acknowledge the relationship. In fact, when Kate
attempted to pull him to her, he fled for protection to Lovey Mary and
cast belligerent glances at the intruder.
Kate laughed.
"Oh, you needn't be so scary; you might as well get used to me, for I
am going to take you home with me. I bet he's a corker, ain't he,
Lovey? He used to bawl all night. Sometimes I'd have to spank him two
or three times."
Lovey Mary clasped the child closer and looked up in dumb terror. Was
Tommy to be taken from her? Tommy to go away with Kate?
"Great Scott!" exclaimed Kate, exasperated at the girl's manner. "You
are just as ugly and foolish as you used to be. I'm going in to see
Miss Bell."
Lovey Mary waited until she was in the house, then she stole
noiselessly around to the office window. The curtain blew out across
her cheek, and the swaying lilacs seemed to be trying to count the
china buttons on her back; but she stood there with staring eyes and
parted lips, and held her breath to listen.
"Of course," Miss Bell was saying, measuring her words with due
precision, "if you feel that you can now support your child and that
it is your duty to take him, we cannot object. There are many other
children waiting to come into the home. And yet--" Miss Bell's voice
sounded human and unnatural--"yet I wish he could stay. Have you
thought, Kate, of your responsibility toward him, of--"
"Oh! Ough!" shrieked Tommy from the playground, in tones of distress.
Lovey Mary left her point of vantage and rushed to the rescue. She
found him emitting frenzied yells, while a tiny stream of blood
trickled down his chin.
"It was my little duck," he gasped as soon as he was able to speak. "I
was tissin' him, an' he bited me."
At thought of the base ingratitude on the part of the duck, Tommy
wailed anew. Lovey Mary led him to the hydrant and bathed the injured
lip, while she soothed his feelings. Suddenly a wave of tenderness
swept over her. She held his chubby face up to hers and said
fervently:
"Tommy, do you love me?"
"Yes," said Tommy, with a reproachful eye on the duck. "Yes; I yuv to
yuv. I don't yuv to tiss, though!"
"But me, Tommy, me. Do you love me?"
"Yes," he answered gravely, "dollar an' a half."
"Whose little boy are you?"