CHAPTER XV.
MARY AND ELIZABETH VISIT SADIE SINGMASTER.
Farmer Landis, happening to mention at the breakfast table his intention of driving over to the "Ax Handle Factory" to obtain wood ashes to use as a fertilizer, his wife remarked, "Why not take Mary with you, John?
She can stop at Singmaster's with a basket of carpet rags for Sadie.

I've been wanting to send them over for some time." Turning to Mary, she said: "Poor little, crippled Sadie! On account of a fall, which injured her spine, when a small child, she has been unable to walk for years.

She cuts and sews carpet rags, given her by friends and neighbors, and from their sale to a carpet weaver in a near-by town, helps her widowed mother eke out her small income." "I'd love to go see her," said Mary.

Elizabeth Schmidt also expressed her willingness to go, when asked, saying: "I am positive mother will add her contribution to the carpet rags for Sadie, I do pity her so very much." "Yes," said Mary's Aunt, "she is poor and proud.

She will not accept charity, so we persuade her to take carpet rags, as we have more than we can possibly use." On reaching the Singmaster cottage, the girls alighted with their well-filled baskets, Mary's Uncle driving on to the "Ax Handle Factory," promising to call for the girls on his return.