Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

								

merely an apparition, and it took both Jim and his mother to carry
it in. Sitting on the floor, they unpacked it. There were
vegetables, oatmeal, fruit, and even tea and coffee. But the
surprise was at the very bottom! A big turkey, looking so comical
with his legs stuck in his body that Jim laughed outright.
"It's the first turkey that's been in this house fer many a day!"
said Mrs. Wiggs, delightedly, as she pinched the fat fowl. "I 'spect
Europena'll be skeered of it, it's so big. My, but we'll have a
good dinner to-morrow! I'll git Miss Hazy an' Chris to come over
an' spend the day, and I'll carry a plate over to Mrs. Schultz, an'
take a little o' this here tea to ole Mrs. Lawson."
The cloud had turned inside out for Mrs. Wiggs, and only the silver
lining was visible. Jim was doing a sum on the brown paper that came
over the basket, and presently he looked up and said slowly:
"Ma, I guess we can't have the turkey this year. I kin sell it fer a
dollar seventy-five, and that would buy us hog-meat fer a good
while."
Mrs. Wiggs's face fell, and she twisted her apron-string in silence.
She had pictured the joy of a real Christmas dinner, the first the
youngest children had ever known; she had already thought of half a
dozen neighbors to whom she wanted to send "a little snack." But one
look at Jim's anxious face recalled their circumstances.
"Of course we'll sell it," she said brightly. "You have got the
longest head fer a boy! We'll sell it in the mornin', an' buy
sausage fer dinner, an' I'll cook some of these here nice
vegetables an' put a orange an' some candy at each plate, an' the
childern'll never know nothin' 'bout it. Besides," she added, "if
you ain't never et turkey meat you don't know how good it is."
But in spite of her philosophy, after Jim had gone to bed she
slipped over and took one more look at the turkey.
"I think I wouldn't 'a' minded so much," she said, wistfully, "ef
they hadn't 'a' sent the cramberries, too!"
For ten days the basket of provisions and the extra money made by
Jim's night work and Mrs. Wiggs's washing supplied the demands of
the family; but by the end of January the clouds had gathered
thicker than before.
Mrs. Wiggs's heart was heavy, one night, as she tramped home through
the snow after a hard day's work. The rent was due, the coal was
out, and only a few potatoes were left in the barrel. But these were
mere shadow troubles, compared to Jim's illness; he had been too
sick to go to the factory that morning, and she dared not think what
changes the day may have brought. As she lifted the latch of her
rickety door the sobbing of a child greeted her; it was little
Europena, crying for food. For three days there had been no bread in
the house, and a scanty supply of potatoes and beans had been their
only nourishment.
Mrs. Wiggs hastened to where Jim lay on a cot in the corner; his
cheeks were flushed, and his thin, nervous fingers picked at the old