The tired mother with the “weeny baby” on her arm lay on a long
carpenter's bench, her earthly journey over, and when Rebecca stole
in and placed the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude bier,
death suddenly took on a more gracious and benign aspect. It was only
a child's sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sad
moment, but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, looked
as if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world; while the weeny
baby, whose heart had fallen asleep almost as soon as it had learned to
beat, the weeny baby, with Emma Jane's nosegay of buttercups in its tiny
wrinkled hand, smiled as if it might have been loved and longed for and
mourned.
“We've done all we can now without a minister,” whispered Rebecca. “We
could sing, 'God is ever good' out of the Sunday school song book, but
I'm afraid somebody would hear us and think we were gay and happy.
What's that?”
A strange sound broke the stillness; a gurgle, a yawn, a merry little
call. The two girls ran in the direction from which it came, and there,
on an old coat, in a clump of goldenrod bushes, lay a child just waking
from a refreshing nap.
“It's the other baby that Lizy Ann Dennett told about!” cried Emma Jane.
“Isn't he beautiful!” exclaimed Rebecca. “Come straight to me!” and she
stretched out her arms.
The child struggled to its feet, and tottered, wavering, toward the warm
welcome of the voice and eyes. Rebecca was all mother, and her maternal
instincts had been well developed in the large family in which she was
next to the eldest. She had always confessed that there were perhaps a
trifle too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm, but, nevertheless, had she
ever heard it, she would have stood loyally by the Japanese proverb:
“Whether brought forth upon the mountain or in the field, it matters
nothing; more than a treasure of one thousand ryo a baby precious is.”
“You darling thing!” she crooned, as she caught and lifted the child.
“You look just like a Jack-o'-lantern.”
The boy was clad in a yellow cotton dress, very full and stiff. His hair
was of such a bright gold, and so sleek and shiny, that he looked like
a fair, smooth little pumpkin. He had wide blue eyes full of laughter,
a neat little vertical nose, a neat little horizontal mouth with his
few neat little teeth showing very plainly, and on the whole Rebecca's
figure of speech was not so wide of the mark.
“Oh, Emma Jane! Isn't he too lovely to go to the poor farm? If only we
were married we could keep him and say nothing and nobody would know the
difference! Now that the Simpsons have gone away there isn't a single
baby in Riverboro, and only one in Edgewood. It's a perfect shame, but
I can't do anything; you remember Aunt Miranda wouldn't let me have the
Simpson baby when I wanted to borrow her just for one rainy Sunday.”
“My mother won't keep him, so it's no use to ask her; she says most
every day she's glad we're grown up, and she thanks the Lord there
wasn't but two of us.”
“And Mrs. Peter Meserve is too nervous,” Rebecca went on, taking the
village houses in turn; “and Mrs. Robinson is too neat.”
“People don't seem to like any but their own babies,” observed Emma
Jane.
“Well, I can't understand it,” Rebecca answered. “A baby's a baby, I
should think, whose ever it is! Miss Dearborn is coming back Monday;
I wonder if she'd like it? She has nothing to do out of school, and we
could borrow it all the time!”
“I don't think it would seem very genteel for a young lady like Miss
Dearborn, who 'boards round,' to take a baby from place to place,”
objected Emma Jane.
“Perhaps not,” agreed Rebecca despondently, “but I think if we haven't
got any--any--_private_ babies in Riverboro we ought to have one for the
town, and all have a share in it. We've got a town hall and a town lamp
post and a town watering trough. Things are so uneven! One house like
mine at Sunnybrook, brimful of children, and the very next one empty!
The only way to fix them right would be to let all the babies that ever
are belong to all the grown-up people that ever are,--just divide
them up, you know, if they'd go round. Oh, I have a thought! Don't
you believe Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him? She carries flowers to the
graveyard every little while, and once she took me with her. There's a
marble cross, and it says: _Sacred to the memory of Sarah Ellen, beloved
child of Sarah and Jeremiah Cobb, aged 17 months_. Why, that's another
reason; Mrs. Dennett says this one is seventeen months. There's five of
us left at the farm without me, but if we were only nearer to Riverboro,
how quick mother would let in one more!”
“We might see what father thinks, and that would settle it,” said Emma
Jane. “Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong. If
we don't bother him, and find a place ourselves for the baby, perhaps
he'll be willing. He's coming now; I hear the wheels.”
Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered to stay and perform the last rites with
the undertaker, and Jack-o'-lantern, with his slender wardrobe tied in
a bandanna handkerchief, was lifted into the wagon by the reluctant Mr.
Perkins, and jubilantly held by Rebecca in her lap. Mr. Perkins drove
off as speedily as possible, being heartily sick of the whole affair,
and thinking wisely that the little girls had already seen and heard
more than enough of the seamy side of life that morning.
Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future was prudently deferred
for a quarter of an hour, and then Mr. Perkins was mercilessly pelted
with arguments against the choice of the poor farm as a place of
residence for a baby.
“His father is sure to come back some time, Mr. Perkins,” urged Rebecca.
“He couldn't leave this beautiful thing forever; and if Emma Jane and I
can persuade Mrs. Cobb to keep him a little while, would you care?”
No; on reflection Mr. Perkins did not care. He merely wanted a quiet
life and enough time left over from the public service to attend to his
blacksmith's shop; so instead of going home over the same road by which
they came he crossed the bridge into Edgewood and dropped the children
at the long lane which led to the Cobb house.
Mrs. Cobb, “Aunt Sarah” to the whole village, sat by the window looking
for Uncle Jerry, who would soon be seen driving the noon stage to the
post office over the hill. She always had an eye out for Rebecca, too,
for ever since the child had been a passenger on Mr. Cobb's stagecoach,
making the eventful trip from her home farm to the brick house in
Riverboro in his company, she had been a constant visitor and the joy
of the quiet household. Emma Jane, too, was a well-known figure in the
lane, but the strange baby was in the nature of a surprise--a surprise
somewhat modified by the fact that Rebecca was a dramatic personage and
more liable to appear in conjunction with curious outriders, comrades,
and retainers than the ordinary Riverboro child. She had run away from
the too stern discipline of the brick house on one occasion, and had
been persuaded to return by Uncle Jerry. She had escorted a wandering
organ grinder to their door and begged a lodging for him on a rainy
night; so on the whole there was nothing amazing about the coming
procession.
The little party toiled up to the hospitable door, and Mrs. Cobb came
out to meet them.
Rebecca was spokesman. Emma Jane's talent did not lie in eloquent
speech, but it would have been a valiant and a fluent child indeed
who could have usurped Rebecca's privileges and tendencies in this
direction, language being her native element, and words of assorted
sizes springing spontaneously to her lips.
“Aunt Sarah, dear,” she said, plumping Jack-o'-lantern down on the grass
as she pulled his dress over his feet and smoothed his hair becomingly,
“will you please not say a word till I get through--as it's very
important you should know everything before you answer yes or no?
This is a baby named Jacky Winslow, and I think he looks like a
Jack-o'-lantern. His mother has just died over to North Riverboro, all
alone, excepting for Mrs. Lizy Ann Dennett, and there was another little
weeny baby that died with her, and Emma Jane and I put flowers
around them and did the best we could. The father--that's John
Winslow--quarreled with the mother--that was Sal Perry on the Moderation
Road--and ran away and left her. So he doesn't know his wife and the
weeny baby are dead. And the town has got to bury them because they
can't find the father right off quick, and Jacky has got to go to the
poor farm this afternoon. And it seems an awful shame to take him up to
that lonesome place with those old people that can't amuse him, and
if Emma Jane and Alice Robinson and I take most all the care of him we
thought perhaps you and Uncle Jerry would keep him just for a little
while. You've got a cow and a turn-up bedstead, you know,” she hurried
on insinuatingly, “and there's hardly any pleasure as cheap as more
babies where there's ever been any before, for baby carriages and
trundle beds and cradles don't wear out, and there's always clothes
left over from the old baby to begin the new one on. Of course, we can
collect enough things to start Jacky, so he won't be much trouble or
expense; and anyway, he's past the most troublesome age and you won't
have to be up nights with him, and he isn't afraid of anybody or
anything, as you can see by his just sitting there laughing and sucking
his thumb, though he doesn't know what's going to become of him. And
he's just seventeen months old like dear little Sarah Ellen in the
graveyard, and we thought we ought to give you the refusal of him before
he goes to the poor farm, and what do you think about it? Because it's
near my dinner time and Aunt Miranda will keep me in the whole afternoon
if I'm late, and I've got to finish weeding the hollyhock bed before
sundown.”