ruct her standard of propriety. "I 've heard of
'painters' colic,' but I never knowed it to go to the head before!"

CHAPTER XI

THE BENEFIT DANCE

"Those there are whose hearts have a slope southward,
and are open to the whole noon of Nature."

NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that calamities seldom come singly, it was
not until the Fourth of July that the Cabbage Patch was again the
scene of an accident.

Mrs. Wiggs had been hanging out clothes, and was turning to pick up
the empty basket, when Billy precipitated himself into the yard,
yelling wildly:

"Chris Hazy's broke his leg!"

Mrs. Wiggs threw up her hands in horror. "Good lands, Billy!
Where's he at?"

"They 're bringin' him up the railroad track."

Mrs. Wiggs rushed into the house. "Don't let on to Miss Hazy till we
git him in," she cautioned, snatching up a bundle of rags and a
bottle of liniment. "Pore chile! How it must hurt him! I'll run
down the track an' meet 'em."

She was breathless and trembling from excitement as she turned the
corner at Mrs. Schultz's. A crowd of boys were coming up the track,
trundling a wheelbarrow, in which sat Chris Hazy, the merriest of
the lot, waving a piece of his wooden leg in the air.

Mrs. Wiggs turned upon Billy;

"I never lied, ma! I said he broke his leg," the boy gasped out as
best he could for laughing, "an' you never ast which one. Oh, boys!
Git on to the rags an' arniky!"

Such a shout went up that Mrs. Wiggs laughed with the rest, but only
for a moment, for she spied Miss Hazy tottering toward them, and she
hastened forward to relieve her anxiety.

"It's his peg-stick!" she shouted. "P-e-g-stick!"

This information, instead of bringing relief to Miss Hazy, caused a
fresh burst of tears. She sat down on the track, with her apron over
her face, and swayed backward and forward.

"Don't make much difference which one 't was," she sobbed; "it would
be 'bout as easy to git another sure-'nough leg as to git a new
wooden one. That las' one cost seven dollars. I jes' sewed an' saved
an' scrimped to git it, an' now it's--busted!"

The boys stood around in silent sympathy, and when nobody was
looking Chris wiped his eyes on his coat sleeve. Miss Hazy's
arrival had changed their point of view.

Mrs. Wiggs rose to the occasion.

"Boys," she said, and her voice had an inspiring ring, "I'll tell
you what let's do! Let's give a benefit dance to-night, an' buy
Chris Hazy a new peg-stick. Every feller