Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin

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.”

IV

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      Mrs. Cobb had enjoyed a considerable period of reflection during this monologue, and Jacky had not used the time unwisely, offering several unconscious arguments and suggestions to the matter under discussion; lurching over on the greensward and righting himself with a chuckle, kicking his bare feet about in delight at the sunshine and groping for his toes with arms too short to reach them, the movement involving an entire upsetting of equilibrium followed by more chuckles.

      Coming down the last of the stone steps, Sarah Ellen’s mother regarded the baby with interest and sympathy.

      “Poor little mite!” she said; “that doesn’t know what he’s lost and what’s going to happen to him. Seems to me we might keep him a spell till we’re sure his father’s deserted him for good. Want to come to Aunt Sarah, baby?”

      Jack-o’-lantern turned from Rebecca and Emma Jane and regarded the kind face gravely; then he held out both his hands and Mrs. Cobb, stooping, gathered him like a harvest. Being lifted into her arms, he at once tore her spectacles from her nose and laughed aloud. Taking them from him gently, she put them on again, and set him in the cushioned rocking chair under the lilac bushes beside the steps. Then she took one of his soft hands in hers and patted it, and fluttered her fingers like birds before his eyes, and snapped them like castanets, remembering all the arts she had lavished upon “Sarah Ellen, aged seventeen months,” years and years ago.

      Motherless baby and babyless mother,

       Bring them together to love one another.

      Rebecca knew nothing of this couplet, but she saw clearly enough that her case was won.

      “The boy must be hungry; when was he fed last?” asked Mrs. Cobb. “Just stay a second longer while I get him some morning’s milk; then you run home to your dinners and I’ll speak to Mr. Cobb this afternoon. Of course, we can keep the baby for a week or two till we see what happens. Land! He ain’t goin’ to be any more trouble than a wax doll! I guess he ain’t been used to much attention, and that kind’s always the easiest to take care of.”

      At six o’clock that evening Rebecca and Emma Jane flew up the hill and down the lane again, waving their hands to the dear old couple who were waiting for them in the usual place, the back piazza where they had sat so many summers in a blessed companionship never marred by an unloving word.

      “Where’s Jacky?” called Rebecca breathlessly, her voice always outrunning her feet.

      “Go up to my chamber, both of you, if you want to see,” smiled Mrs. Cobb, “only don’t wake him up.”

      The girls went softly up the stairs into Aunt Sarah’s room. There, in the turn-up bedstead that had been so long empty, slept Jack-o’-lantern, in blissful unconsciousness of the doom he had so lately escaped. His nightgown and pillow case were clean and fragrant with lavender, but they were both as yellow as saffron, for they had belonged to Sarah Ellen.

      “I wish his mother could see him!”