THE OTHER BABY AT RUDDER GRANGE.
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 Iknew 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, Idrove 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 Ireplied 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 Iarranged 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 Inever 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 Iremembered 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.
