III

The tired mother with the “weeny baby” on her arm lay on a long carpenter’s bench, her earthly journey over, and when Rebecca stole in and placed the flowery garland all along the edge of the rude bier, death suddenly took on a more gracious and benign aspect. It was only a child’s sympathy and intuition that softened the rigors of the sad moment, but poor, wild Sal Winslow, in her frame of daisies, looked as if she were missed a little by an unfriendly world; while the weeny baby, whose heart had fallen asleep almost as soon as it had learned to beat, the weeny baby, with Emma Jane’s nosegay of buttercups in its tiny wrinkled hand, smiled as if it might have been loved and longed for and mourned.

“We’ve done all we can now without a minister,” whispered Rebecca. “We could sing, God is ever good’ out of the Sunday school song book, but I’m afraid somebody would hear us and think we were gay and happy. What’s that?”

A strange sound broke the stillness; a gurgle, a yawn, a merry little call. The two girls ran in the direction from which it came, and there, on an old coat, in a clump of goldenrod bushes, lay a child just waking from a refreshing nap.

“It’s the other baby that Lizy Ann Dennett told about!” cried Emma Jane.

“Isn’t he beautiful!” exclaimed Rebecca. “Come straight to me!” and she stretched out her arms.

The child struggled to its feet, and tottered, wavering, toward the warm welcome of the voice and eyes. Rebecca was all mother, and her maternal instincts had been well developed in the large family in which she was next to the eldest. She had always confessed that there were perhaps a trifle too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm, but, nevertheless, had she ever heard it, she would have stood loyally by the Japanese proverb: “Whether brought forth upon the mountain or in the field, it matters nothing; more than a treasure of one thousand ryo a baby precious is.”

“You darling thing!” she crooned, as she caught and lifted the child. “You look just like a Jack-o’-lantern.”

The boy was clad in a yellow cotton dress, very full and stiff. His hair was of such a bright gold, and so sleek and shiny, that he looked like a fair, smooth little pumpkin. He had wide blue eyes full of laughter, a neat little vertical nose, a neat little horizontal mouth with his few neat little teeth showing very plainly, and on the whole Rebecca’s figure of speech was not so wide of the mark.

“Oh, Emma Jane! Isn’t he too lovely to go to the poor farm? If only we were married we could keep him and say nothing and nobody would know the difference! Now that the Simpsons have gone away there isn’t a single baby in Riverboro, and only one in Edgewood. It’s a perfect shame, but I can’t do anything; you remember Aunt Miranda wouldn’t let me have the Simpson baby when I wanted to borrow her just for one rainy Sunday.”

“My mother won’t keep him, so it’s no use to ask her; she says most every day she’s glad we’re grown up, and she thanks the Lord there wasn’t but two of us.”

“And Mrs. Peter Meserve is too nervous,” Rebecca went on, taking the village houses in turn; “and Mrs. Robinson is too neat.”

“People don’t seem to like any but their own babies,” observed Emma Jane.

“Well, I can’t understand it,” Rebecca answered. “A baby’s a baby, I should think, whose ever it is! Miss Dearborn is coming back Monday; I wonder if she’d like it? She has nothing to do out of school, and we could borrow it all the time!”

“I don’t think it would seem very genteel for a young lady like Miss Dearborn, who ‘boards round,’ to take a baby from place to place,” objected Emma Jane.

“Perhaps not,” agreed Rebecca despondently, “but I think if we haven’t got any—any—PRIVATE babies in Riverboro we ought to have one for the town, and all have a share in it. We’ve got a town hall and a town lamp post and a town watering trough. Things are so uneven! One house like mine at Sunnybrook, brimful of children, and the very next one empty! The only way to fix them right would be to let all the babies that ever are belong to all the grown-up people that ever are,—just divide them up, you know, if they’d go round. Oh, I have a thought! Don’t you believe Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him? She carries flowers to the graveyard every little while, and once she took me with her. There’s a marble cross, and it says: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF SARAH ELLEN, BELOVED CHILD OF SARAH AND JEREMIAH COBB, AGED 17 MONTHS. Why, that’s another reason; Mrs. Dennett says this one is seventeen months. 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

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!” whispered Emma Jane.

“You can’t tell; it’s all puzzly about heaven, and perhaps she does,” said Rebecca, as they turned reluctantly from the fascinating scene and stole down to the piazza.

It was a beautiful and a happy summer that year, and every day it was filled with blissful plays and still more blissful duties. On the Monday after Jack-o’-lantern’s arrival in Edgewood Rebecca founded the Riverboro Aunts Association. The Aunts were Rebecca, Emma Jane, Alice Robinson, and Minnie Smellie, and each of the first three promised to labor for and amuse the visiting baby for two days a week, Minnie Smellie, who lived at some distance from the Cobbs, making herself responsible for Saturday afternoons.

Minnie Smellie was not a general favorite among the Riverboro girls, and it was only in an unprecedented burst of magnanimity that they admitted her into the rites of fellowship, Rebecca hugging herself secretly at the thought, that as Minnie gave only the leisure time of one day a week, she could not be called a “full” Aunt. There had been long and bitter feuds between the two children during Rebecca’s first summer in Riverboro, but since Mrs. Smellie had told her daughter that one more quarrel would invite a punishment so terrible that it could only be hinted at vaguely, and Miss Miranda Sawyer had remarked that any niece of hers who couldn’t get along peaceable with the neighbors had better go back to the seclusion of a farm where there weren’t any, hostilities had been veiled, and a suave and diplomatic relationship had replaced the former one, which had been wholly primitive, direct, and barbaric. Still, whenever Minnie Smellie, flaxen-haired, pink-nosed, and ferret-eyed, indulged in fluent conversation, Rebecca, remembering the old fairy story, could always see toads hopping out of her mouth. It was really very unpleasant, because Minnie could never see them herself; and what was more amazing, Emma Jane perceived nothing of the sort, being almost as blind, too, to the diamonds that fell continually from Rebecca’s lips; but Emma Jane’s strong point was not her imagination.

A shaky perambulator was found in Mrs. Perkins’s wonderful attic; shoes and stockings were furnished by Mrs. Robinson; Miss Jane Sawyer knitted a blanket and some shirts; Thirza Meserve, though too young for an aunt, coaxed from her mother some dresses and nightgowns, and was presented with a green paper certificate allowing her to wheel Jacky up and down the road for an hour under the superintendence of a full Aunt. Each girl, under the constitution of the association, could call Jacky “hers” for two days in the week, and great, though friendly, was the rivalry between them, as they washed, ironed, and sewed for their adored nephew.

If Mrs. Cobb had not been the most amiable woman in the world she might have had difficulty in managing the aunts, but she always had Jacky to herself the earlier part of the day and after dusk at night.

Meanwhile Jack-o’-lantern grew healthier and heartier and jollier as the weeks slipped away. Uncle Jerry joined the little company of worshipers and slaves, and one fear alone stirred in all their hearts; not, as a sensible and practical person might imagine, the fear that the recreant father might never return to claim his child, but, on the contrary, that he MIGHT do so!

October came at length with its cheery days and frosty nights, its glory of crimson leaves and its golden harvest of pumpkins and ripened corn. Rebecca had been down by the Edgewood side of the river and had come up across the pastures for a good-night play with Jacky. Her literary labors had been somewhat interrupted by the joys and responsibilities of vice-motherhood, and the thought book was less frequently drawn from its hiding place under the old haymow in the barn chamber.

Mrs. Cobb stood behind the screen door with her face pressed against the wire netting, and Rebecca could see that she was wiping her eyes.

All at once the child’s heart gave one prophetic throb and then stood still. She was like a harp that vibrated with every wind of emotion, whether from another’s grief or her own.