Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch

Before marriage Mr. and Mrs. Wiggs were employed as coachman and housekeeper to Col. Vanderhurst. The Colonel has disinherited his son, Jack, for marrying a girl connected with circus people. A few years later Jack is killed by an accident and the widow appeals to the Colonel, but he refuses to assist her. After many years of hard struggle the widow dies, leaving Lovey Mary, a girl of fourteen, to the care of a sister, her only relative, who is married to a circus proprietor, a man of brutal temper. She gives to her sister her marriage certificate and Lovey Mary's birth certificate, and to Lovey Mary a locket containing the portraits of herself and husband. Mr. and Mrs. Wiggs have married and have five children. Owing to a strike at the works where Wiggs is employed they are suffering great hardships. The works are controlled by a millionaire politician, Murphy. His stepson, Bob, manager of the works, is in sympathy with the strikers, being especially interested in the Wiggs family, whom he helps. Murphy's nephew, Stephen, is extremely jealous of Bob and spies upon him. Stephen tells Murphy that Bob is helping the strikers and is the cause of his being discharged. Through the kindness of an old friend Bob eventually becomes a successful attorney. Mr. Wiggs determines to go to another town in search of work. He there meets Lovey Mary's uncle, the circus proprietor, and is engaged by him as ringmaster. Mrs. Wiggs, deserted by her husband, has a terrible struggle with poverty. Lovey Mary has been taken home to the circus by her aunt, where she leads a life of a drudge. Several years elapse; times are harder than ever with Mrs. Wiggs and Jim, her eldest son, dies through overwork and exposure. Colonel Vanderhurst, Lovey Mary's grandfather, now old and lonely, repents of his hardness to his son's widow and makes a will in her and Lovey Mary's favor. They cannot be found so an advertisement is inserted in the papers by the lawyers. The advertisement is seen by Lovey Mary's uncle, who plots to substitute his own daughter for Lovey Mary. Wiggs has fallen in love with one of the circus performers, Cordelia, by whom he has a child named Tommy. Mary has become passionately fond of little Tommy, and when her uncle, with a view of getting her out of the way, tells her he has secured a situation for her she runs away, taking with her little Tommy rather than be parted from him. Before leaving she takes her uncle's key from his pocket while he sleeps, opens his cash box and secures the locket that her mother had given her and which he has taken from her, and also the marriage and birth certificates. Her uncle pursues her and catches her in a barn. He is about to rob her when Bob, hearing her cries, rescues her and takes her to his house. The next morning, after Bob has gone to the city, her uncle tries to get into the house and Mary, seeing him through the window is terrified, picks up little Tommy, rushes to the railroad tracks and scrambles into a freight car just on the move. Her uncle sees her escaping, too late to catch her. By fate the freight car in which Lovey Mary has traveled stops close to the cabbage patch and Billy Wiggs, noticing the forlorn little figure, takes her to his mother's house. They arrive just as Mrs. Wiggs and her three girls with the geographical names, Europenia, Asia and Australia, assisted by Chris Hazy, are in the midst of preparations for Miss Hazy and Mr. Stubbin's wedding. During the wedding festivities Lovey Mary leaves the parlor and goes into the kitchen to put little Tommy to sleep, giving him her locket to play with. As Tommy falls to sleep there is a knock at the door and Mary, going to see who it is, is kidnapped by her uncle, who, the next day, having secured the marriage and birth certificates, presents himself and daughter to claim the fortune. The firm of lawyers representing the Colonel's estate is the one in which Bob is junior partner and he suspects that the circus proprietor is crooked and d