indoors was the scene and sound of confusion. delia, sensing the panic that lay in the atmosphere, was crying wildly for her mother. the other children, unchecked, were running about the house in a game that seemed an improvised combination of tag and hide-and-go-seek. their excited cries rang from above. arthur was at the telephone trying to get central. beside him, a pencil ready to take down anything of importance, very wan-faced and pale, drooped dicky. from the dining room came the clatter of plates as harold and laura went practically to work to set the table.
arthur stared at maida and rosie as they entered with their strange bundle; stopped his telephoning to say, “where did you get that baby?”
“i’ll tell you in a moment,” maida said wearily, “but now we’ve got to work fast and i never was so tired in my life. oh dicky[pg 211] dear, i’m so sorry for you! poor, poor, mrs. dore and poor, poor granny!”
but it was rosie who really took the situation in charge, rosie who so loved babies, rosie who having helped so long in the care of her own little brother, knew exactly what to do.
“tell laura to get some milk from the ice chest, arthur!” she commanded crisply, “and warm it up on the stove as quickly as possible. then bring it upstairs to us. maida, you come with me!” rosie marched up to the bathroom and maida meekly followed. on the first floor, “get mrs. dore’s sewing board!” rosie ordered and maida got it. in the bathroom, rosie placed the sewing board across the tub, close to the hand bowl; began to undress the baby.
there were few things to take off. they were all loose, comparatively clean, but ragged. soon the little creature lay on the soft towels that rosie had spread on the sewing board, kicking feebly. the removal of her clothes seemed to ease her. her cry abated its violence a bit. only what was the translation of a baby sob came now and then. rosie filled the bowl with warm water, then with the gentlest of soothing strokes and [pg 212]using the softest sponge she could find, she began to bathe the baby. its crying died down completely. it responded to this cooling treatment with a little soft coo that drew from maida, “oh the little darling. don’t you love her already, rosie?”
“i love all babies,” rosie said in a business-like tone, sopping the little girl’s downy head. she dried her carefully—deft little pattings that seemed merely pettings—with the finest towel she could get.
“run to mrs. dore’s room and get delia’s powder!” she commanded briefly again. when maida returned, she covered the little glowing form with the cool powder. the baby’s eyelids began to droop.
“see how sleepy it is,” rosie said with a kind of triumph. “ah there comes laura. oh i wonder if she had the sense to put the milk in one of delia’s old bottles?”
laura had had the sense to do this, and was obviously proud of her foresight. very expertly, rosie turned a few drops from the bottle onto the back of her hand; decided it was not too hot; inserted the nipple in the baby’s mouth. the little girl pulled on it like one famished; pulled so hard and long and deep that rosie had, once or twice, to take the bottle[pg 213] away to keep her from choking. the little hands always reached out for the bottle and after a few instants rosie gave it to her again.
in the meantime, maida answered the stream of laura’s questions, and laura answered the torrent of maida’s.
the baby pulled continuously at the bottle. rosie had to lift the lower end higher and higher. after a long while, the baby dropped the nipple with a little sigh of relaxation. her eyes, which had been growing heavier and heavier closed ... opened ... closed....
now she was asleep.
“i don’t know what her feeding hours are,” rosie said. “i’ll give her another feeding at four this afternoon. i’m going to fix the alarm clock so that i’ll wake at ten to-night, then i’ll let her go until morning. i don’t believe she has more than one night feeding. even if she does, she can get along without it, one night. she seems famished now though. i never saw such a hungry baby.”
“you wake me up,” maida said almost jealously. “remember she’s my baby.”
“yes,” rosie agreed, “i’ll wake you.” she knit her satiny brows. “i wonder whose baby she is? they must be awfully worried about her by this time.”
[pg 214]
“oh, i left a note,” maida protested.
“are you sure you left it where they’d see it?”
maida nodded. “i put a stone on it to hold it down and i surrounded it by other pages that i tore out of my diary and put stones on them. you could not fail to see it.”
rosie lifted the baby and carried it to her bed. “i don’t think she could fall off,” she said. “but to make sure i’ll put chairs up against her and bank her around with pillows. now we’d better let her sleep.”
in the meantime, arthur had finished his telephoning. mrs. dore was as well as could be expected; was resting quietly. the break was a simple one. all she needed, in order to recover, was time and rest. the three boys had managed to stop delia’s sobs; had captured the five other children and were keeping them quiet. now they bombarded maida with questions.
for the third time, maida told the story of the baby. “well, maida, you certainly were brave,” laura declared, “to follow that noise until you found out what it was. i would have run as fast as i could and as far as i could. that is, if i hadn’t fainted.”
“no,” maida protested, “i wasn’t brave[pg 215] i wish i had been. at first i was as frightened as i could be. but when it flashed on me that it was a baby crying, it didn’t take any courage to find out where the baby was.”
“i wonder whose baby it is,” harold said.
everybody said this at least once, everybody except arthur, but arthur said nothing. he was thinking hard.
“something queer happened to me the other night,” he broke out suddenly. “i didn’t tell you all about it because—because—well somehow i couldn’t. i didn’t know what the answer was and i was ashamed that a girl could beat me like that.”
“like what?” rosie demanded. “what are you talking about? oh, arthur, do tell us!”
arthur related in all its detail his experience with silva burle. “it made me wild,” he admitted, “to think that a girl could find a path that i couldn’t see and get away from me when i could run twice as fast as she—well not twice as fast,” he corrected himself honestly, “but a great deal faster.”
“well of course silva’s a queer girl,” was rosie’s comment. she added, “she won’t be running down any paths for some time yet i’m afraid, poor thing!”
[pg 216]
“i think silva had something to do with that baby,” arthur guessed shrewdly.
“what nonsense!” rosie said briskly. “what would she be doing taking care of somebody’s baby in the woods?”
“but she had a bottle of milk under her arm,” arthur persisted.
“yes,” rosie said in an uncertain voice, “and that reminds me that i have seen her before carrying bottles of milk.”
“oh i think somebody’s probably left that baby there for the day,” laura said, “some tramp—or somebody.”
“but it must have been the baby crying that frightened us on the day of the picnic,” harold declared.
“well then,” laura explained, “it was the same baby and the same people, whoever they were, left the baby in the cave that day too.”
the telephone rang. arthur answered it. he listened for a moment, then he said, “yes, of course. we’ll be all right. tell her not to worry.” he turned to the others. “poor granny’s so upset that she wants to stay near the hospital all night, so she can see mrs. dore the first thing to-morrow morning. she asked if we could get along by ourselves until [pg 217]floribel came to-night and of course i said we could.”
“of course we can,” maida reassured him.
“oh i’m so glad granny can stay. it does seem as though everything came at once.”
“things go by three’s,” rosie asserted.
“well what are our three?” maida inquired. “there was mrs. dore’s accident, finding the baby and— what’s the third?”
“you wait,” rosie prophesied loftily, “it’ll come. but now the thing to do is to get lunch. thank goodness for all those cooking lessons we’ve had. don’t you remember, maida, that your father said that we’d never know when we’d be put in a situation that we’d be very glad we could cook.”
“what shall we have for luncheon?” maida asked and her voice quavered a little.
“we’d better look into the ice chest and see what’s there,” suggested the practical laura.
“oh here’s all this nice stew left over from day before yesterday!” rosie’s head was concealed by the ice chest door but her tone was that of one who has found diamonds. “that’s nice because all we’ve got to do to that is warm it up. i’ll attend to the stew.”
“and here’s some delicious tarts,” laura exclaimed, “that granny must have made[pg 218] this morning. we’ll have them for dessert.”
“now while i’m warming the stew,” rosie commanded, “you two cut the bread; fill the milk pitchers and put the butter on the table.”
when they summoned the others to lunch, they found the seats all changed about. this was the work of the practical rosie. “you must each of you take care of one of the children,” rosie explained. “now all of you begin buttering the bread while i am dishing out the stew.”
laura had betsy, and dicky, delia. harold had one of the clark twins and laura the other. maida took care of both timmie and molly; so that rosie had nothing to do but serve.
“my goodness, i never realized how much work granny and mrs. dore do,” laura said once, “and how patient they are. delia, that’s your fourth slice of bread and butter. now you must drink your milk.”
