TWO MAY-QUEENS

ONCE, not very long ago, and in a place not very far off,
a ragged little lame girl sat upon a stone in the doorway
of a poor hut, saying softly to herself:

“April showers bring forth May-flowers.”

“They do, do they?” screeched a sharp voice from
within. “I Il May-flowers you, if you don’t look out!
What you settin’ out there for, Lerviny, and them clothes
a-getting cold in the pail ?”

“T ’m a-lettin’ ’em soak,” answered the lame child gently,
without looking up.

“You be, be you? Well, just you take yerself off of
that, and come here to yer work. There’s them collars
all got to be starched.”

Laviny, taking her rough little crutch, rose as quickly
as she could, and, entering the dingy room, worked her
way among tubs and broken chairs to an old pine table
that held a pan of hot starch and a number of dry collars
tied in a ragged towel.

“Can’t I take’em out in the sun, Aunt? I can’t half see
to do ’em in here.”

Her aunt, who at the moment was bending over a tub-
ful of steaming-hot clothes, was rubbing the schoolmaster’s

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