Greta stayed with Mercy until noon that day, begging, entreating, and
finally commanding her to lie quiet in bed, while she herself dressed
and fed the child, and cooked and cleaned, in spite of the Laird
Fisher's protestations. When all was done, and the old charcoal-burner
had gone out on the hills, Greta picked up the little fellow in her arms
and went to Mercy's room. Mercy was alert to every sound, and in an
instant was sitting up in bed. Her face beamed, her parted lips smiled,
her delicate fingers plucked nervously at the counterpane.
"How brightsome it is to-day, Greta," she said. "I'm sure the sun must
be shining."
The window was open, and a soft breeze floated through the sun's rays
into the room. Mercy inclined her head aside, and added, "Ah, you young
rogue, you; you are there, are you? Give him to me, the rascal!" The
rogue was set down in his mother's arms, and she proceeded to punish his
rascality with a shower of kisses. "How bonny his cheeks must be; they
will be just like two ripe apples," and forthwith there fell another
shower of kisses. Then she babbled over the little one, and lisped, and
stammered, and nodded her head in his face, and blew little puffs of
breath into his hair, and tickled him until he laughed and crowed and
rolled and threw up his legs; and then she kissed his limbs and
extremities in a way that mothers have, and finally imprisoned one of
his feet by putting it ankle-deep into her mouth. "Would you ever think
a foot could be so tiny, Greta?" she said. And the little one plunged
about and clambered laboriously up its mother's breast, and more than
once plucked at the white bandage about her head. "No, no, Ralphie must
not touch," said Mercy with sudden gravity. "Only think, Ralphie pet,
one week--only one--nay, less--only six days now, and then--oh, then--!"
A long hug, and the little fellow's boisterous protest against the
convulsive pressure abridged the mother's prophecy.
All at once Mercy's manner changed. She turned toward Greta, and said,
"I will not touch the bandage, no, never; but if Ralphie tugged at it,
and it fell--would that be breaking my promise?"
Greta saw what was in her heart.
"I'm afraid it would, dear," she said, but there was a tremor in her
voice.
Mercy sighed audibly.
"Just think, it would be only Ralphie. The kind doctors could not be
angry with my little child. I would say, 'It was the boy,' and they
would smile and say, 'Ah, that is different.'"
"Give me the little one," said Greta with emotion.
Mercy drew the child closer, and there was a pause.
"I was very wrong, Greta," she said in a low tone. "Oh! you would not
think what a fearful thing came into my mind a minute ago. Take my
Ralphie. Just imagine, my own innocent baby tempted me."
As Greta reached across the bed to lift the child out of his mother's
lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, by help of a
limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence of recent events that
somewhat overshadowed his little existence. "Puss--dat," many times
repeated, was further explained by one chubby forefinger with its
diminutive finger nail pointed to the fat back of the other hand.
"He means that the little cat has scratched him," said Greta. "But bless
the mite, he is pointing to the wrong hand."
"Puss--dat," continued the child, and peered up into his mother's
sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. She had borne
yesterday's operation without a groan, but now the scratch on her
child's hand went to her heart like a stab.
"Lie quiet, Mercy," said Greta; "it will be gone to-morrow."
"Go-on," echoed the little chap, and pointed out at the window.
"The darling, how he picks up every word!" said Greta.
"He means the horse," explained Mercy.
"Go-on--man--go-on," prattled the little one, with a child's
in-difference to all conversation except his own.
"Bless the love, he must remember the doctor and his horse," said Greta.
Mercy was putting her lips to the scratch on the little hand.
"Oh, Greta, I am very childish; but a mother's heart melts like butter."
"Batter," echoed the child, and wriggled out of Greta's arms to the
ground, where he forthwith clambered on to the stool, and possessed
himself of a slice of bread which lay on the table at the bedside. Then
the fair curly head disappeared like a glint of sunlight through the
door to the kitchen.
"What shall I care if other mothers see my child? I shall see him too,"
said Mercy, and she sighed. "Yes," she added, softly, "his hands and his
eyes and his feet, and his soft hair."
"Try to sleep an hour or two, dear," said Greta, "and then perhaps you
may get up this afternoon--only _perhaps_, you know, but we'll see."
"Yes, Greta, yes. How kind you are."
"You will be kinder to me some day," said Greta very tenderly.
"How very selfish I am. But then it is so hard not to be selfish when
you are a mother. Only fancy, I never think of myself as Mercy now. No,
never. I'm just Ralphie's mama. When Ralphie came, Mercy must have died
in some way. That's very silly, isn't it? Only it does seem true."
"Man--go-on--batter," was heard from the kitchen, mingled with the
patter of tiny feet.
"Listen to him. How tricksome he is! And you should hear him cry 'Oh!'
You would say, 'That child has had an eye knocked out.' And then, in a
minute, behold he is laughing once more. There, I'm selfish again; but I
will make up for it some day, if God is good."
"Yes, Mercy, He is good," said Greta.
Her arm rested on the door-jamb, and her head dropped on to it; her eyes
swam. Did it seem at that moment as if God had been very good to these
two women?
"Greta," said Mercy, and her voice fell to a whisper, "do you think
Ralphie is like--anybody?"
"Yes, dear, he is like you."
There was a pause. Then Mercy's hand strayed from under the bedclothes
and plucked at Greta's gown.
"Do you think," she asked, in a voice all but inaudible, "that father
knows who it is?"
"I can not say--_we_ have never told him."
"Nor I--he never asked, never once--only, you know, he gave up his work
at the mine, and went back to the charcoal-pit when Ralphie came. But he
never said a word."
Greta did not answer. At that moment the bedroom door was pushed open
with a little lordly bang, and the great wee man entered with his piece
of bread insecurely on one prong of a fork.
"Toas'," he explained complacently, "toas'," and walked up to the empty
grate and stretched his arm over the fender at the cold bars.
"Why, there's no fire for toast, you darling goose," said Greta,
catching him in her arms, much to his masculine vexation.
Mercy had risen on an elbow, and her face was full of the yearning of
the blind. Then she lay back.
"Never mind," she said to herself in a faltering voice, "let me lie
quiet and _think_ of all his pretty ways."