Half-way down the corridor Aunt Jane encountered Miss Canfield.
The nurse stopped her with a word. "Mr. Medfield keeps asking for you."
She raised her chin a little as she spoke.
Aunt Jane regarded it mildly.
"Anything the matter with him?" she asked.
Miss Canfield hesitated. "He's irritable," she said safely.
Aunt Jane nodded. "That's good for him---- That won't hurt any! He's got
his Suite and he's got the best 'special' in the house on his case."
Miss Canfield's face softened subtly.
"You tell him I'm busy," said Aunt Jane. "Tell him I'll come by and by,
when I get around to it---- There's Miss Manners with a baby! I was just
looking for a baby!" She hurried off.
Miss Canfield watched, with amused face, while Aunt Jane gathered the
baby into her ample arms and disappeared in Room 15. Then she turned
back to report to Herman Medfield in Suite A that Aunt Jane would come
when she was not so busy.
Aunt Jane gazed shrewdly over the little bundle of blankets in her arms
at Edith Dalton, sitting propped against her pillows and scowling a
little discontentedly.
Aunt Jane sat down and undid the blanket. "They're such cute little
things," she said. "It don't seem as if there'd ever be enough of _him_
to make a man of, does it!" She held up the coming man in his long white
gown.
Edith Dalton glanced indifferently--and glanced away.
The baby, out of his blue eyes, gazed at something unseen.
"I always do wonder what they're looking at and what they're thinking
about!" said Aunt Jane. She had gathered the baby comfortably up against
the curve of her breast and was rocking gently back and forth.
"I don't suppose they think about anything," said Edith Dalton with a
look of unconcern.
"I used to think maybe that was so," said Aunt Jane. "But since I've had
so many of 'em----"
"How many have you had?" asked the other quickly.
"Of my own--you mean?" Aunt Jane paused. "I never had but one of my
own," she said regretfully. "But here--I've had three hundred and
sixty-nine."
Edith Dalton smiled a faint smile.
Aunt Jane watched it and rocked.
"It's different when you've a good many," she said placidly. "You begin
to see what they mean--just plain baby! Not because it's _your_ baby,
you know--but what they're like and what they mean."
"They don't mean much of anything, do they--except to cry?" The
indifferent look held itself, but something had stirred in it.
"Yes, they cry!" Aunt Jane was silent.... "They cry, good and hard
sometimes.... And that means something, too. Folks don't let 'em cry
half enough, _I_ think! I don't know what it means--their crying so,"
she admitted. "But it sounds as if it meant something--something more
than just tummy-ache.... And their smiling's like that, too. It isn't
just smiling at something you do to them, or something you say. It's
more as if they were smiling at something inside--kind of as if the
whole world was a joke to 'em, and being alive was a kind of beautiful
joke--if we could see how 'tis." She was looking down at the bundle in
her arms and smiling to it.
Edith Dalton eyed it curiously.
Aunt Jane shook her head reproachfully at the baby, still smiling a
little. She looked significantly at Edith Dalton. "He's trying to get
his thumb in," she said. "They won't let him do that in there." She
nodded toward the other wing.
"He kind of knows, I reckon. He knows his Aunt Jane will let him do
it--if he can." She watched him happily.
"There! he's done it!"
The woman glanced at the baby indifferently and then at Aunt Jane's
face, and the softness crept out a little.
"You think a great deal of babies and children, don't you?" She said it
almost jealously.
"Yes, I love 'em," said Aunt Jane. She rocked happily. "You didn't ever
have any children, did you?"
"No."
Aunt Jane's face made no comment. She rocked a minute. "I reckon women
always wants children.... Every woman wants 'em--even when she doesn't
know.... She wants 'em--way in back somewhere; she kind o' misses 'em."
She rocked again--slowly.
"I only had that one baby myself--and he died. But I've always been
thankful I had him--even if he died.... That was a good many years ago.
But even now, every once in a while, I'll dream I'm holding him in my
arms; and then I'll wake up--and I'm not holding anything.... When I
wake up like that, when I've been dreaming, I generally throw on my
wrapper and run down to the Mother's Ward and wander around a spell,
tucking 'em in and seeing that everybody's comfortable. Then I can
generally go back and go to sleep all right."
Her face was beautiful and gentle as she talked, and Edith Dalton
watched it wistfully. She had relaxed a little, and rested back against
the pillow.
"You don't want children unless you have a home for them," she said half
rebelliously.
"That's so. Children do need a home! I guess that's what homes are
for--little children playing round in 'em."
The two women were silent and the room grew darker. Aunt Jane watched
the face on her arm.
"He's going to sleep," she said. "I'll have to take him back to his
mammy."
She got up quietly and moved toward the door, jogging her arms as she
went. At the door she paused and looked back, over the sleeping child,
to the woman on the pillows and smiled to her--as if they knew something
together.
Then she went out. And Edith Dalton lay staring at the wall. Slowly her
eyes filled with tears that sobbed and ran down her face. She covered
them with her hands and sobbed again and nestled to the pillows and
cried happily--as if her heart were breaking in her.