Lovey Mary
Chapter VI
The Losing Of Mr. Stubbins
"Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove."
If the Cabbage Patch had pinned its faith upon the efficiency of the
matrimonial agency in regard to the disposal of Miss Hazy, it was doomed to
disappointment. The events that led up to the final catastrophe were unique in
that they cast no shadows before.
Miss Hazy's letters, dictated by Mrs. Wiggs and penned by Lovey Mary, were
promptly and satisfactorily answered. The original of the spirit picture proved
to be one Mr. Stubbins, "a prominent citizen of Bagdad Junction who desired to
marry some one in the city. The lady must be of good character and without
incumbrances." "That's all right," Mrs. Wiggs had declared; "you needn't have no
incumbrances. If he'll take keer of you, we'll all look after Chris."
The wooing had been ideally simple. Mr. Stubbins, with the impetuosity of a
new lover, demanded an early meeting. It was a critical time, and the Cabbage
Patch realized the necessity of making the first impression a favorable one.
Mrs. Wiggs took pictures from her walls and chairs from her parlor to beautify
the house of Hazy. Old Mrs. Schultz, who was confined to her bed, sent over her
black silk dress for Miss Hazy to wear. Mrs. Eichorn, with deep insight into the
nature of man, gave a pound-cake and a pumpkin-pie. Lovey Mary scrubbed, and
dusted, and cleaned, and superintended the toilet of the bride elect.
The important day had arrived, and with it Mr. Stubbins. To the many eyes
that surveyed him from behind shutters and half-open doors he was something of a
disappointment. Mrs. Wiggs's rosy anticipations had invested him with the charms
of an Apollo, while Mr. Stubbins, in reality, was far from godlike. "My land!
he's lanker 'n a bean-pole," exclaimed Mrs. Eichorn, in disgust. But then Mrs.
Eichorn weighed two hundred, and her judgment was warped. Taking everything into
consideration, the prospects had been most flattering. Mr. Stubbins, sitting in
Mrs. Wiggs's most comfortable chair, with a large slice of pumpkin-pie in his
hand, and with Miss Hazy opposite arrayed in Mrs. Schultz's black silk, had
declared himself ready to marry at once. And Mrs. Wiggs, believing that a groom
in the hand is worth two in the bush, promptly precipitated the courtship into a
wedding.
The affair proved the sensation of the hour, and "Miss Hazy's husband" was
the cynosure of all eyes. For one brief week the honeymoon shed its beguiling
light on the neighborhood, then it suffered a sudden and ignominious eclipse.
The groom got drunk.
Mary was clearing away the supper-dishes when she was startled by a cry from
Miss Hazy:
"My sakes! Lovey Mary! Look at Mr. Stubbins a-comin' up the street! Do you
s'pose he's had a stroke?"
Lovey Mary ran to the window and beheld the "prominent citizen of Bagdad
Junction" in a state of unmistakable intoxication. He was bareheaded and
hilarious, and used the fence as a life-preserver. Miss Hazy wrung her hands and
wept.
"Oh, what'll I do?" she wailed. "I do b'lieve he's had somethin' to drink. I
ain't goin' to stay an' meet him, Mary; I'm goin' to hide. I always was skeered
of drunken men."
"I'm not," said Mary, stoutly. "You go on up in my room and lock the door;
I'm going to stay here and keep him from messing up this kitchen. I want to tell
him what I think of him, anyhow. I just hate that man! I believe you do, too,
Miss Hazy."
Miss Hazy wept afresh. "Well, he ain't my kind, Mary. I know I'd hadn't orter
marry him, but it 'pears like ever' woman sorter wants to try gittin' married
oncet anyways. I never would 'a' done it, though, if Mrs. Wiggs hadn't 'a'
sicked me on."
By this time Mr. Stubbins had reached the yard, and Miss Hazy fled. Lovey
Mary barricaded Tommy in a corner with his playthings and met the delinquent at
the door. Her eyes blazed and her cheeks were aflame. This modern David had no
stones and sling to slay her Goliath; she had only a vocabulary full of stinging
words which she hurled forth with indignation and scorn. Mr. Stubbins had
evidently been abused before, for he paid no attention to the girl's wrath. He
passed jauntily to the stove and tried to pour a cup of coffee; the hot liquid
missed the cup and streamed over his wrist and hand. Howling with pain and
swearing vociferously, he flung the coffee-pot out of the window, kicked a chair
across the room, then turned upon Tommy, who was adding shrieks of terror to the
general uproar. "Stop that infernal yelling!" he cried savagely, as he struck
the child full in the face with his heavy hand.
Lovey Mary sprang forward and seized the poker. All the passion of her wild
little nature was roused. She stole up behind him as he knelt before Tommy, and
lifted the poker to strike. A pair of terrified blue eyes arrested her. Tommy
forgot to cry, in sheer amazement at what she was about to do. Ashamed of
herself, she threw the poker aside, and taking advantage of Mr. Stubbins's
crouching position, she thrust him suddenly backward into the closet. The
manoeuver was a brilliant one, for while Mr. Stubbins was unsteadily separating
himself from the debris into which he had been cast, Lovey Mary slammed the door
and locked it. Then she picked up Tommy and fled out of the house and across the
yard.
Mrs. Wiggs was sitting on her back porch pretending to knit, but in truth
absorbed in a wild game of tag which the children were having on the commons.
"That's right," she was calling excitedly — "that's right, Chris Hazy! You kin
ketch as good as any of 'em, even if you have got a peg-stick." But when she
caught sight of Mary's white, distressed face and Tommy's streaming eyes, she
dropped her work and held out her arms. When Mary had finished her story Mrs.
Wiggs burst forth:
"An' to think I run her up ag'in' this! Ain't men deceivin'? Now I'd 'a'
risked Mr. Stubbins myself fer the askin'. It's true he was a widower, an' ma
uster allays say, 'Don't fool with widowers, grass nor sod.' But Mr. Stubbins
was so slick-tongued! He told me yesterday he had to take liquor sometime fer
his war enjury."
"But, Mrs. Wiggs, what must we do?" asked Lovey Mary, too absorbed in the
present to be interested in the past.
"Do? Why, we got to git Miss Hazy out of this here hole. It ain't no use
consultin' her; I allays have said talkin' to Miss Hazy was like pullin' out
bastin'-threads: you jes take out what you put in. Me an' you has got to think
out a plan right here an' now, then go to work an' carry it out."
"Couldn't we get the agency to take him back?" suggested Mary.
"No, indeed; they couldn't afford to do that. Lemme see, lemme see — " For
five minutes Mrs. Wiggs rocked meditatively, soothing Tommy to sleep as she
rocked. When she again spoke it was with inspiration:
"I've got it! It looks sometime, Lovey Mary, 's if I'd sorter caught some of
Mr. Wiggs's brains in thinkin' things out. They ain't but one thing to do with
Miss Hazy's husband, an' we'll do it this very night."
"What, Mrs. Wiggs? What is it?" asked Lovey Mary, eagerly.
"Why, to lose him, of course! We'll wait till Mr. Stubbins is dead asleep;
you know men allays have to sleep off a jag like this. I've seen Mr. Wiggs — I
mean I've heared 'em say so many a time. Well, when Mr. Stubbins is sound
asleep, you an' me an' Billy will drag him out to the railroad."
Mrs. Wiggs's voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper, and her eyes looked fierce
in the twilight.
Lovey Mary shuddered.
"You ain't going to let the train run over him, are you?" she asked.
"Lor', child, I ain't a 'sassinator! No; we'll wait till the midnight freight
comes along, an' when it stops fer water, we'll h'ist Mr. Stubbins into one of
them empty cars. The train goes 'way out West somewheres, an' by the time Mr.
Stubbins wakes up, he'll be so far away from home he won't have no money to git
back."
"What'll Miss Hazy say?" asked Mary, giggling in nervous excitement.
"Miss Hazy ain't got a thing to do with it," replied Mrs. Wiggs conclusively.
At midnight, by the dark of the moon, the unconscious groom was borne out of
the Hazy cottage. Mrs. Wiggs carried his head, while Billy Wiggs and Mary and
Asia and Chris officiated at his arms and legs. The bride surveyed the scene
from the chinks of the upstairs shutters.
Silently the little group waited until the lumbering freight train slowed up
to take water, then with a concerted effort they lifted the heavy burden into an
empty car. As they shrank back into the shadow, Billy whispered to Lovey Mary:
"Say, what was that you put 'longside of him?"
Mary looked shamefaced.
"It was just a little lunch-dinner," she said apologetically; "it seemed
sorter mean to send him off without anything to eat."
"Gee!" said Billy. "You're a cur'us girl!"
The engine whistled, and the train moved thunderously away, bearing an
unconscious passenger, who, as far as the Cabbage Patch was concerned, was
henceforth submerged in the darkness of oblivion.