The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1886-11-18

uelS IOW sal llll5 llblie Besllb Was grow
ing. 1t would have made the tears come
quick to all our eyes if we had known
her and had seen the poor child sitting
alone on a wide red seat in the cars,
bound on her solitary journey. We are
SO glad that we know already something
about Miss Ann Dunning.
III.
Only two business men and Peggy
herself were landed by the train at the
Littletown station; but all the idlers in
the village were there to look at them.
The brakeman, to whom Sister Helen
had spoken about Peggy, helped her
down the car steps very kindly into the
middle of the awesome crowd. Then
Miss Dunning, who was waiting, too,
pushed her way eagerly forward TO say:
''This must be the little girl that has
come to make me visit" and tired, be-
wildered Peggy looked up with brim-
ming eyes into the homely, pleasant
face, and said:
~Yes, please" without a doubt or
fear.
II liked her the minute [ saw her, ="
Miss Dunning whispered to everybody
the next day, going and coming from
church with Peggy fast held by the
hand. "She's so handy and sensible !
don't know as 1 ever shall send ..er
back. She's got no folks. Come here
from the hospital"
And again:
You'd never take her to be 0-year-
old. She's forever a-watchin' me to try
and get what l want and save steps. She
set the table as handy as could be last
night, two hours after she come-when
l was busy cuttin' and bastin' for Miss
Farley. You know she was called away
to stay with her mother, and has ended
up her SCHOOL,"
After such a promising beginning we
need not be surprised that arrangements
were made for Peggy's further continu-
ance. And here again were solitary set
in families-Bfiss Dunning, the busy
village dressmalker; Peggy, the lonely
child who chung to the new friend with
double affection, because the little house
was in way so much like the two
rooms in which she and her elderly
aunt had lived together. What could
have been more fitting than their being
housemates?
Miss Dunning did not prosper the less
though money was not too plenty in
village where there was a younger and
more fashionable person busy at her
trade, and almost every one of her Gus
toners had very few dresses, and made
them herself after good Miss Dunning
had cut and basted them. But she had
some good, generous friends, and at any
she did sometimes about the garden
seeds, that she was ashamed 20 look the
contribution box in the face. This
brings me back again to the garden.
There was one pleasant June evening
just after Peggy camel know that it
had not yet been decided that the visit was
to last any more than a week-when the
new friends were busy together among
the fiower-beds. Miss Dunning was
right in saying cheerfully that this was
a good growing year; flowers and weeds
alike were springing up as close together
as they could, and just before it was
dark the good woman told her little
guest that she might take the old hoe
and wage war against a velvety growth
of seedlings that spread from one side of
the path nearly to the other. Nobody
had taken the time to attend to the dis
orderly narrow path, there had been so
much to do with transplanting and more
important things. Peggy's eyes had
shone at her first glimpse of the garden
on Sunday morning, and she was prov
ing herself a most apt scholar under
Miss Dunning's instructions. She had
seen the somewhat neglected hospital
garden few times before she left town,
and already knew the names of many
plants.
She looked up in unmistakable dismay
when Miss Dunning spoke; but she went
dutifully to the side of the doorstep and
brought the hoe; then she stood still and
looked down at the green bit Of Seeding
carpet.
Hurry up, Peggy!" said brisk Miss
Dunning. "It's getting dark, and we
arn't near through with what 1 set my
self to do tonight"
"Do you want me to kill them all?"
Peggy. "Did you see that
they weren't weeds. could find nice
little places over there by the fence"
Mercy mel" exclaimed Miss Dunning
with great amazement. "We can't save
every sprout in she garden. do have
q feelin' for 'em sometimes, but we
might just as well let 'em grow up into
a wilderness at once"
"They would all bloom and be flowers,
wouldn't they" asked Peggy, tinidly.
Perhaps the poor child felt as if she had
been saved out of just such a crowd that
nobody seemed to want. Il wish could
put them in little boxes and take them
back to Boston. They would grow, and
be so pretty in the hospital"
She spoke as If she were asking the
greatest favor in the world.
"IIl give you better things than these"
said Mrs. Dunning, with sudden feel
ing of desperate jealousy at the mere
mention of hospital and Peggy's native
city. swell, you needn't murder the
petunys and things tonight. anywav.
My back aches and feel chill; so we
must so in, and you can help me set my
bread to rise before we go to bed. 'Tis
o'clock now, if it's a minutel"
and Peggy carried the hoe back again
with sigh of relief.
Little the Seeding poppies and mari
Colds and petunias knew about their
fate, when they came crowding up to-
gether through the rich, hard soil of the
footpath that late spring; but this is
what happened TO them. Who ever
thought of saving such lives but quaint
little Peggy McAllister? But she dreamed
that night about carrying a fower-pot
full of small green plants toeverybody in
the sunny hospital wards, to stand
on the tables beside the bed or In the
windows, 80 that all the sick people
could watch them grow. She did not
know how she could really carry 80
many; but she was sure Miss DInning
would let her, when she walked up in the
and thought about the dream.
1t took good deal of courage to ask
Miss Dunning at breakfast time, and
the kind little dressmaker laughed until
Peggy felt that she must have been very
foolish.
Its reasonable dream enough, GER
tain; but, thessg don't know how I'm
ever going to let you go back again,
you dear little thingI" she said to Peggy.
II believe shall keep you all the time,
if you like well enough to stay" and