Lovey Mary

								


Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

LOVEY MARY
BY
ALICE HEGAN RICE
AUTHOR OF
"Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch"

1903

TO
CALE YOUNG RICE
WHO TAUGHT ME THE SECRET
OF PLUCKING ROSES FROM
A CABBAGE PATCH

CONTENTS
CHAPTER



   I  A CACTUS-PLANT
II  A RUNAWAY COUPLE
III  THE HAZY HOUSEHOLD
IV  AN ACCIDENT AND AN INCIDENT

   V  THE DAWN OF A ROMANCE
VI  THE LOSING OF MR. STUBBINS
VII  NEIGHBORLY ADVICE
VIII  A DENOMINATIONAL GARDEN
IX  LABOR DAY

   X  A TIMELY VISIT
XI  THE CHRISTMAS PLAY
XII  REACTION
XIII  AN HONORABLE RETREAT
XIV  THE CACTUS BLOOMS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"They met at the pump." ..... Frontispiece
"'Now the Lord meant you to be plain.'"
"'Come here, Tom, and kiss your mother.'"
"''T ain't no street...; this here is the Cabbage Patch.'"
"She puffed her hair at the top and sides."
"'She took on mighty few airs fer a person in mournin'.'"
"She sat on the door-step, white and miserable." 67
"Mrs. Wiggs took pictures from her walls and chairs from her parlor to
beautify the house of Hazy."
"Mr. Stubbins, sitting in Mrs. Wiggs's most comfortable chair, with a
large slice of pumpkin-pie in his hand."
"'Stick out yer tongue.'"
"Asia held out her hands, which were covered with warm red mitts."
"Master Robert Redding was right side up again, sobbing himself quiet
in Lovey Mary's arms."
"'Have you ever acted any?' he asked."
"Europena stepped forward."
"Sang in a high, sweet voice, 'I Need Thee Every Hour.'"
"'Haven't you got any place you could go to?'"
Susie Smithers at the keyhole
"Lovey Mary waved until she rounded a curve."

LOVEY MARY
CHAPTER I
A CACTUS-PLANT

    For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,

    And hope and fear,...

    Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,--

    How love might be, hath been indeed, and is.

             BROWNING'S "A Death in the Desert."
Everything about Lovey Mary was a contradiction, from her hands and
feet, which seemed to have been meant for a big girl, to her high
ideals and aspirations, that ought to have belonged to an amiable one.
The only ingredient which might have reconciled all the conflicting
elements in her chaotic little bosom was one which no one had ever
taken the trouble to supply.
When Miss Bell, the matron of the home, came to receive Lovey Mary's
confession of repentance, she found her at an up-stairs window making
hideous faces and kicking the furniture. The depth of her repentance
could always be gaged by the violence of her conduct. Miss Bell looked
at her as she would have looked at one of the hieroglyphs on the
Obelisk. She had been trying to decipher her for thirteen years.
Miss Bell was stout and prim, a combination which was surely never
intended by nature. Her gray dress and tight linen collar and cuffs
gave the uncomfortable impression of being sewed on, while her rigid