I drove slowly home, and little Pat lay very quiet, looking up steadily
at me with his twinkling blue eyes. For a time, everything went very
well, but happening to look up, I saw in the distance a carriage
approaching. It was an open barouche, and I knew it belonged to a family
of our acquaintance, in the village, and that it usually contained
ladies.
Quick as thought, I rolled up Pat in his shawl and stuffed him under the
seat. Then rearranging the lap-robe over my knees, I drove on, trembling
a little, it is true.
As I supposed, the carriage contained ladies, and I knew them all. The
coachman instinctively drew up, as we approached. We always stopped and
spoke, on such occasions.
They asked me after my wife, apparently surprised to see me alone, and
made a number of pleasant observations, to all of which I replied with
as unconcerned and easy an air as I could assume. The ladies were in
excellent spirits, but in spite of this, there seemed to be an air of
repression about them, which I thought of when I drove on, but could not
account for, for little Pat never moved or whimpered, during the whole
of the interview.
But when I took him again in my lap, and happened to turn, as I arranged
the robe, I saw his bottle sticking up boldly by my side from between
the cushions. Then I did not wonder at the repression.
When I reached home, I drove directly to the barn. Fortunately, Jonas
was there. When I called him and handed little Pat to him I never saw
a man more utterly amazed. He stood, and held the child without a
word. But when I explained the whole affair to him, he comprehended it
perfectly, and was delighted. I think he was just as anxious for my plan
to work as I was myself, although he did not say so.
I was about to take the child into the house, when Jonas remarked that
it was barefooted.
“That won't do,” I said. “It certainly had socks on, when I got it. I
saw them.”
“Here they are,” said Jonas, fishing them out from the shawl, “he's
kicked them off.”
“Well, we must put them on,” I said, “it won't do to take him in, that
way. You hold him.”
So Jonas sat down on the feed-box, and carefully taking little Pat, he
held him horizontally, firmly pressed between his hands and knees, with
his feet stuck out toward me, while I knelt down before him and tried to
put on the little socks. But the socks were knit or worked very loosely,
and there seemed to be a good many small holes in them, so that
Pat's funny little toes, which he kept curling up and uncurling, were
continually making their appearance in unexpected places through the
sock. But, after a great deal of trouble, I got them both on, with the
heels in about the right places.
“Now they ought to be tied on,” I said, “Where are his garters?”
“I don't believe babies have garters,” said Jonas, doubtfully, “but I
could rig him up a pair.”
“No,” said I; “we wont take the time for that. I'll hold his legs apart,
as I carry him in. It's rubbing his feet together that gets them off.”
As I passed the kitchen window, I saw Pomona at work. She looked at me,
dropped something, and I heard a crash. I don't know how much that crash
cost me. Jonas rushed in to tell Pomona about it, and in a moment I
heard a scream of laughter. At this, Euphemia appeared at an upper
window, with her hand raised and saying, severely: “Hush-h!” But the
moment she saw me, she disappeared from the window and came down-stairs
on the run. She met me, just as I entered the dining-room.
“What IN the world!” she breathlessly exclaimed.
“This,” said I, taking Pat into a better position in my arms, “is my
baby.”
“Your--baby!” said Euphemia. “Where did you get it? what are you going
to do with it?”
“I got it in New Dublin,” I replied, “and I want it to amuse and occupy
me while I am at home. I haven't anything else to do, except things that
take me away from you.”
“Oh!” said Euphemia.
At this moment, little Pat gave his first whimper. Perhaps he felt the
searching glance that fell upon him from the lady in the middle of the
room.
I immediately began to walk up and down the floor with him, and to sing
to him. I did not know any infant music, but I felt sure that a
soothing tune was the great requisite, and that the words were of small
importance. So I started on an old Methodist tune, which I remembered
very well, and which was used with the hymn containing the lines:
“Weak and wounded, sick and sore,”
and I sang, as soothingly as I could:
“Lit-tle Pat-sy, Wat-sy, Sat-sy,
Does he feel a lit-ty bad?
Me will send and get his bot-tle
He sha'n't have to cry-wy-wy.”
“What an idiot!” said Euphemia, laughing in spite of her vexation.
“No, we aint no id-i-otses
What we want's a bot-ty mik.”
So I sang as I walked to the kitchen door, and sent Jonas to the barn
for the bottle.
Pomona was in spasms of laughter in the kitchen, and Euphemia was trying
her best not to laugh at all.
“Who's going to take care of it, I'd like to know?” she said, as soon as
she could get herself into a state of severe inquiry.
“Some-times me, and some-times Jonas,”
I sang, still walking up and down the room with a long, slow step,
swinging the baby from side to side, very much as if it were grass-seed
in a sieve, and I were sowing it over the carpet.
When the bottle came, I took it, and began to feed little Pat. Perhaps
the presence of a critical and interested audience embarrassed us, for
Jonas and Pomona were at the door, with streaming eyes, while Euphemia
stood with her handkerchief to the lower part of her face, or it may
have been that I did not understand the management of bottles, but, at
any rate, I could not make the thing work, and the disappointed little
Pat began to cry, just as the whole of our audience burst into a wild
roar of laughter.
“Here! Give me that child!” cried Euphemia, forcibly taking Pat and the
bottle from me. “You'll make it swallow the whole affair, and I'm sure
its mouth's big enough.”
“You really don't think,” she said, when we were alone, and little Pat,
with his upturned blue eyes serenely surveying the features of the
good lady who knew how to feed him, was placidly pulling away at his
india-rubber tube, “that I will consent to your keeping such a creature
as this in the house? Why, he's a regular little Paddy! If you kept him
he'd grow up into a hod-carrier.”
“Good!” said I. “I never thought of that. What a novel thing it would be
to witness the gradual growth of a hod-carrier! I'll make him a little
hod, now, to begin with. He couldn't have a more suitable toy.”
“I was talking in earnest,” she said. “Take your baby, and please carry
him home as quick as you can, for I am certainly not going to take care
of him.”
“Of course not,” said I. “Now that I see how it's done, I'm going to do
it myself. Jonas will mix his feed and I will give it to him. He looks
sleepy now. Shall I take him upstairs and lay him on our bed?”
“No, indeed,” cried Euphemia. “You can put him on a quilt on the floor,
until after luncheon, and then you must take him home.”
I laid the young Milesian on the folded quilt which Euphemia prepared
for him, where he turned up his little pug nose to the ceiling and went
contentedly to sleep.
That afternoon I nailed four legs on a small packing-box and made a
bedstead for him. This, with a pillow in the bottom of it, was very
comfortable, and instead of taking him home, I borrowed, in the evening,
some baby night-clothes from Pomona, and set about preparing Pat for the
night.
This Euphemia would not allow, but silently taking him from me, she put
him to bed.
“To-morrow,” she said, “you must positively take him away. I wont stand
it. And in our room, too.”
“I didn't talk in that way about the baby you adopted,” I said.
To this she made no answer, but went away to attend, as usual, to
Pomona's baby, while its mother washed the dishes.
That night little Pat woke up, several times, and made things unpleasant
by his wails. On the first two occasions, I got up and walked him about,
singing impromptu lines to the tune of “weak and wounded,” but the third
time, Euphemia herself arose, and declaring that that doleful tune was
a great deal worse than the baby's crying, silenced him herself, and
arranging his couch more comfortably, he troubled us no more.
In the morning, when I beheld the little pad of orange fur in the box,
my heart almost misgave me, but as the day wore on, my courage rose
again, and I gave myself up, almost entirely, to my new charge,
composing a vast deal of blank verse, while walking him up and down the
house.
Euphemia scolded and scolded, and said she would put on her hat and go
for the mother. But I told her the mother was dead, and that seemed to
be an obstacle. She took a good deal of care of the child, for she said
she would not see an innocent creature neglected, even if it was
an incipient hod-carrier, but she did not relax in the least in her
attention to Pomona's baby.
The next day was about the same, in regard to infantile incident, but,
on the day after, I began to tire of my new charge, and Pat, on his
side, seemed to be tired of me, for he turned from me when I went to
take him up, while he would hold out his hands to Euphemia, and grin
delightedly when she took him.
That morning I drove to the village and spent an hour or two there. On
my return I found Euphemia sitting in our room, with little Pat on her
lap. I was astonished at the change in the young rascal. He was dressed,
from head to foot, in a suit of clothes belonging to Pomona's baby; the
glowing fuzz on his head was brushed and made as smooth as possible,
while his little muslin sleeves were tied up with blue ribbon.
I stood speechless at the sight.
“Don't he look nice?” said Euphemia, standing him up on her knees. “It
shows what good clothes will do. I'm glad I helped Pomona make up so
many. He's getting ever so fond of me, ze itty Patsy, watsy! See how
strong he is! He can almost stand on his legs! Look how he laughs! He's
just as cunning as he can be. And oh! I was going to speak about that
box. I wouldn't have him sleep in that old packing-box. There are little
wicker cradles at the store--I saw them last week--they don't cost much,
and you could bring one up in the carriage. There's the other baby,
crying, and I don't know where Pomona is. Just you mind him a minute,
please!” and out she ran.
I looked out of the window. The horse still stood harnessed to the
carriage, as I had left him. I saw Pat's old shawl lying in a corner.
I seized it, and rolling him in it, new clothes and all, I hurried
down-stairs, climbed into the carriage, hastily disposed Pat in my lap,
and turned the horse. The demeanor of the youngster was very different
from what it was when I first took him in my lap to drive away with him.
There was no confiding twinkle in his eye, no contented munching of his
little fists. He gazed up at me with wild alarm, and as I drove out of
the gate, he burst forth into such a yell that Lord Edward came bounding
around the house to see what was the matter. Euphemia suddenly appeared
at an upper window and called out to me, but I did not hear what she
said. I whipped up the horse and we sped along to New Dublin. Pat soon
stopped crying, but he looked at me with a tear-stained and reproachful
visage.
The good women of the settlement were surprised to see little Pat return
so soon.
“An' wasn't he good?” said Mrs. Hogan as she took him from my hands.
“Oh, yes!” I said. “He was as good as he could be. But I have no further
need of him.”
I might have been called upon to explain this statement, had not the
whole party of women, who stood around burst into wild expressions of
delight at Pat's beautiful clothes.
“Oh! jist look at 'em!” cried Mrs. Duffy. “An' see thim leetle
pittycoots, thrimmed wid lace! Oh, an' it was good in ye, sir, to give
him all thim, an' pay the foive dollars, too.”
“An' I'm glad he's back,” said the fostering aunt, “for I was a coomin'
over to till ye that I've been hearin' from owle Pat, his dad, an' he's
a coomin' back from the moines, and I don't know what he'd a' said if
he'd found his leetle Pat was rinted. But if ye iver want to borry him,
for a whoile, after owle Pat's gone back, ye kin have him, rint-free;
an' it's much obloiged I am to ye, sir, fur dressin' him so foine.”
I made no encouraging remarks as to future transactions in this line,
and drove slowly home.
Euphemia met me at the door. She had Pomona's baby in her arms. We
walked together into the parlor.
“And so you have given up the little fellow that you were going to do so
much for?” she said.
“Yes, I have given him up,” I answered.
“It must have been a dreadful trial to you,” she continued.
“Oh, dreadful!” I replied.
“I suppose you thought he would take up so much of your time and
thoughts, that we couldn't be to each other what we used to be, didn't
you?” she said.
“Not exactly,” I replied. “I only thought that things promised to be
twice as bad as they were before.”
She made no answer to this, but going to the back door of the parlor she
opened it and called Pomona. When that young woman appeared, Euphemia
stepped toward her and said: “Here, Pomona, take your baby.”
They were simple words, but they were spoken in such a way that they
meant a good deal. Pomona knew what they meant. Her eyes sparkled, and
as she went out, I saw her hug her child to her breast, and cover it
with kisses, and then, through the window, I could see her running to
the barn and Jonas.
“Now, then,” said Euphemia, closing the door and coming toward me, with
one of her old smiles, and not a trace of preoccupation about her, “I
suppose you expect me to devote myself to you.”
I did expect it, and I was not mistaken.
Since these events, a third baby has come to Rudder Grange. It is not
Pomona's, nor was it brought from New Dublin. It is named after a little
one, who died very young, before this story was begun, and the strangest
thing about it is that never, for a moment, does it seem to come between
Euphemia and myself.