Rilla of Ingleside - The Original Classic Edition. Montgomery L

sez I." Rilla drew the blanket down a little farther. "Why, the baby isn't dressed!" she exclaimed, in a shocked tone. "Who was to dress him I'd like to know," demanded Mrs. Conover truculently. "I hadn't time--took me all the time there was looking after Min. 'Sides, as I told yez, I don't know nithing about kids. Old Mrs. Billy Crawford, she was here when it was born and she washed it and rolled it up in that flannel, and Jen she's tended it a bit since. The critter is warm enough. This weather would melt a brass monkey." Rilla was silent, looking down at the crying baby. She had never encountered any of the tragedies of life before and this one smote her to the core of her heart. The thought of the poor mother going down into the valley of the shadow alone, fretting about her baby, with no one near but this abominable old woman, hurt her terribly. If she had only come a little sooner! Yet what could she have done--what could she do now? She didn't know, but she must do something. She hated babies--but she simply could not go 29 away and leave that poor little creature with Mrs. Conover--who was applying herself again to her black bottle and would probably be helplessly drunk before anybody came. "I can't stay," thought Rilla. "Mr. Crawford said I must be home by supper-time because he wanted the pony this evening himself. Oh, what can I do?" She made a sudden, desperate, impulsive resolution. "I'll take the baby home with me," she said. "Can I?" "Sure, if yez wants to," said Mrs. Conover amiably. "I hain't any objection. Take it and welcome." "I--I can't carry it," said Rilla. "I have to drive the horse and I'd be afraid I'd drop it. Is there a--a basket anywhere that I could put it in?" "Not as I knows on. There ain't much here of anything, I kin tell yez. Min was pore and as shiftless as Jim. Ef ye opens that drawer over there yez'll find a few baby clo'es. Best take them along." Rilla got the clothes--the cheap, sleazy garments the poor mother had made ready as best she could. But this did not solve the pressing problem of the baby's transportation. Rilla looked helplessly round. Oh, for mother--or Susan! Her eyes fell on an enormous blue soup tureen at the back of the dresser. "May I have this to--to lay him in?" she asked. "Well, 'tain't mine but I guess yez kin take it. Don't smash it if yez can help--Jim might make a fuss about it if he comes back alive--which he sure will, seein' he ain't any good. He brung that old tureen out from England with him--said it'd always been in the family. Him and Min never used it--never had enough soup to put in it--but Jim thought the world of it. He was mighty perticuler about some things but didn't worry him none that there weren't much in the way o' eatables to put in the dishes." For the first time in her life Rilla Blythe touched a baby--lifted it--rolled it in a blanket, trembling with nervousness lest she drop it or--or--break it. Then she put it in the soup tureen. "Is there any fear of it smothering?" she asked anxiously. "Not much odds if it do," said Mrs. Conover. Horrified Rilla loosened the blanket round the baby's face a little. The mite had stopped crying and was blinking up at her. It had big dark eyes in its ugly little face. "Better not let the wind blow on it," admonished Mrs. Conover. "Take its breath if it do." Rilla wrapped the tattered little quilt around the soup tureen. "Will you hand this to me after I get into the buggy, please?" "Sure I will," said Mrs. Conover, getting up with a grunt.

       And so it was that Rilla Blythe, who had driven to the Anderson house a self-confessed hater of babies, drove away from it carrying one in a soup tureen on her lap!

       Rilla thought she would never get to Ingleside. In the soup tureen there was an uncanny silence. In one way she was thankful the baby did not cry but she wished it would give an occasional squeak to prove that it was alive. Suppose it were smothered! Rilla dared not unwrap it to see, lest the wind, which was now blowing a hurricane, should "take its breath," whatever dreadful thing that might be. She was a thankful girl when at last she reached harbour at Ingleside.

       Rilla carried the soup tureen to the kitchen, and set it on the table under Susan's eyes. Susan looked into the tureen and for once in

       her life was so completely floored that she had not a word to say.

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       "What in the world is this?" asked the doctor, coming in.

       Rilla poured out her story. "I just had to bring it, father," she concluded. "I couldn't leave it there." "What are you going to do with it?" asked the doctor coolly.

       Rilla hadn't exactly expected this kind of question.

       "We--we can keep it here for awhile--can't we--until something can be arranged?" she stammered confusedly.

       Dr. Blythe walked up and down the kitchen for a moment or two while the baby stared at the white walls of the soup tureen and

       Susan showed signs of returning animation. Presently the doctor confronted Rilla.

       "A young baby means a great deal of additional work and trouble in a household, Rilla. Nan and Di are leaving for Redmond next week and neither your mother nor Susan is able to assume so much extra care under present conditions. If you want to keep that baby here you must attend to it yourself."

       "Me!" Rilla was dismayed into being ungrammatical. "Why--father--I--I couldn't!"

       "Younger girls than you have had to look after babies. My advice and Susan's is at your disposal. If you cannot, then the baby must go back to Meg Conover. Its lease of life will be short if it does for it is evident that it is a delicate child and requires particular care. I doubt if it would survive even if sent to an orphans' home. But I cannot have your mother and Susan over-taxed."

       The doctor walked out of the kitchen, looking very stern and immovable. In his heart he knew quite well that the small inhabitant of the big soup tureen would remain at Ingleside, but he meant to see if Rilla could not be induced to rise to the occasion.

       Rilla sat looking blankly at the baby. It was absurd to think she could take care of it. But--that poor little, frail, dead mother who had worried about it--that dreadful old Meg Conover.

       "Susan, what must be done for a baby?" she asked dolefully.

       "You must keep it warm and dry and wash it every day, and be sure the water is neither too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two

       hours. If it has colic, you put hot things on its stomach," said Susan, rather feebly and flatly for her.

       The baby began to cry again.

       "It must be hungry--it has to be fed anyhow," said Rilla desperately. "Tell me what to get for it, Susan, and I'll get it."