CHAPTER VI.
A PHILANTHROPIC SCHEME.
One morning, when the mumps were a thing of the past, Eunice and Cricket walked along to school arm-in-arm. Cricket swung her books, as usual, by the long strap, and Eunice had hers snugly tucked under her arm. Both were chattering as fast as their busy tongues could wag. As they turned around the corner into a quiet street, the sound of a crying child attracted their attention, though at first there was nothing to be seen.
“There it is,” said Cricket. “See that mite up there.”
The “mite” was a funny-looking little thing about three years old, poorly dressed, bareheaded, with a little flaxen pig-tail sticking out behind each ear. The child stood at the top of some steps, wailing steadily, and beating its little blue fists against the door.
“It’s been shut out, poor little thing,” said Eunice, running up the steps and ringing the bell, vigorously. “Wait a moment, Cricket, till someone comes to the door.”
The baby stopped crying and surveyed her new friend with a pair of staring, pale-blue eyes.
It was certainly a very dirty baby, and Eunice wondered at its belonging to such a nice-looking house. Then a trim maid opened the door.
“I found this baby, here, trying to get in,” began Eunice, civilly, “so I rang the bell for her, and waited till you came to take her in.”
The trim maid surveyed the baby in indignant scorn.
“It don’t belong here, miss, for sure. The likes o’ that!”
“Doesn’t belong here? The poor little thing! Then she must be lost. She was pounding on your door and crying dreadfully. What shall I do with her?”
“’Deed, I don’t know, miss,” answered the maid, backing away and partly shutting the door, as if afraid that Eunice would insist on leaving the interesting infant there. It had immediately adopted Eunice as its protector, apparently, for it grasped her skirt with one hand, and with a thumb tucked deep into its mouth, it stood passively staring from one to the other. Somebody must do something, that was clear.
“Come on,” called Cricket, who had walked slowly on. “Won’t she go in?”
“Come back a minute. The maid says she doesn’t belong here. What shall we do with her? I suppose she’s lost. Can’t I leave her here? I have to go to school,” added Eunice, turning to the girl, who had now left only a crack of door open.
“’Deed, no. We didn’t find her,” said the girl, impertinently. “It doesn’t belong anywhere about here. Take her to the police station. We can’t take care of beggar’s brats,” and with that she shut the door, leaving Eunice staring as blankly at the door as the baby did at her dress.
“What a horrid, cross girl!” said Eunice, indignantly, at last, descending the steps slowly to accommodate her steps to the short, fat legs beside her. The child still clung closely to a fold of her dress.
“What shall we do with it? We’ll be dreadfully late for school.”
“Let’s take it to school,” suggested Cricket.
“How could we? Baby, what is your name, and where do you live?”
Baby uttered a gurgle that doubtless meant volumes, but which the girls could not interpret. She was a Dutchy-looking little thing, with a wide, chubby face and squat little figure. Her little flaxen pig-tails were about an inch and a half long, and were tied with white string.
“Shall we take her to the police station? Let’s hurry, whatever we do. It’s ’most nine.”
“The police station? and have the poor little atom locked up in a big, black cell?” exclaimed Eunice, indignantly. “Never!” for her ideas as to the exact advantage of taking a lost child to a police station were somewhat vague.
“Let’s take her to the little bake-shop woman by the school, and leave her there for the morning, anyway. I’m sure she’ll take care of her. We’ll take her home after school, and papa will see about her.”
Eunice assenting to this proposal, they now took up the line of march. People glanced and smiled at the funny, dirty baby, with the handkerchief that Eunice tied over its head, and the two well-dressed children, but they did not notice it.
“Eunice, we might adopt it!” cried Cricket suddenly. “Wouldn’t that be fun? It could play with Kenneth, and ’Liza wouldn’t mind one more child to take care of.”
“What fun!” exclaimed Eunice. “And if ’Liza didn’t want the trouble we could do it ourselves. It could sleep in a crib in our room. I’d wash it one morning, and you could the next.”
“Yes, and we’d spend Saturday mornings making its clothes.”
“And we’d take it to walk when we got home from school—”
“And we’d teach it its letters—”
“And put it to bed—”
“Would we have to spank her if she was naughty?”
“Oh, do let’s beg them to let us have it for our very own, and bring it up ourselves. Would you like to live with us, baby?”
The possibility of a distracted mother, searching around for the child, somehow never occurred to the girls, in their planning about the little waif, and they chattered on, in their eagerness, till they reached the shop of the little baker, with whom they meant to leave the child.
The good-natured little woman, who knew the children well by sight, was quite interested in their story, and was entirely willing to take charge of the lost baby till one o’clock. She was an ignorant little German woman, and she never thought of telling the girls to send it to the police station to be kept till its friends could look it up.
The thought of the baby kept the girls excited all the morning. After school they started off immediately, without waiting, as usual, for their friends. The baby recognised Eunice as soon as she appeared, and pulled her dress delightedly.
“Could you lend us something to put on her head?” asked Eunice, eyeing the flaxen pig-tails doubtfully. “My handkerchief makes her look so queer, and I’m afraid she’ll take cold without anything over her head.”
The little bake-shop woman good-naturedly produced a very remarkable-looking cap of her own baby’s, and tied it on the little waif’s head.
“I haf ask her the name,” she said, as she tied the strings, “but I no unnerstan’ her. She try to talk, but she yust—”
“Jabbers,” said Cricket. “I should say she did. Good-by! Thank you ever so much for taking care of her for us.”
When the girls arrived at home they found a free field. Mamma had gone to Marbury to spend the day with grandma, and had taken Kenneth with her. Marjorie was out to lunch with a friend; and papa, Jane said, had been unexpectedly called out of town an hour ago, and would not be back that night. They took the baby up to the nursery, and introduced their prize to astonished ’Liza and the twins.
“But you can’t keep it,” said ’Liza. “I jest guess its poor mother is running all around the streets looking for it.”
“Oh, do you think so?” said Eunice surprised. “Why, I never thought of her. Well, of course, papa will advertise the baby, and do everything about it, but if we don’t find anyone belonging to her, we are going to keep her, Cricket and I.”
Whereupon ’Liza pretended to faint away.
The twins were perfectly delighted with the addition to the family.
“It’s just like the little boy we finded once,” piped up Zaidie, “only it’s a girl. Auntie wouldn’t let us keep it.”
“This is a really, truly, losted baby, though, and Phelps wasn’t,” explained Helen. “He had only runned away.”
The “losted baby” here took its thumb out of its mouth, and suddenly began to cry.
“It’s hungry!” announced Cricket, with the air of one discovering America. “What do you s’pose it can eat, ’Liza?”
“’Most anything it can get, I rather guess,” said ’Liza. “That kind generally does, and is glad to get it, too.”
“She isn’t ‘that kind,’” said Cricket indignantly, resenting the tone. “Come, baby; we’ll go down-stairs and get some bread and milk. You ’ittle tunnin’ sing!” as the baby stopped in its howl as suddenly as it had begun, and trotted away contentedly with the girls.
Cook duly exclaimed over “the find,” but she reiterated the advice of the cross maid, and recommended them to take the baby to the police station.
“Why does everybody want to send this poor little mite to the police station?” cried Eunice. “It hasn’t done a thing, only got lost, and prob’ly it didn’t want to do that; and everybody wants to shut it up in a big, black cell. Papa can advertise it when he gets home, if he likes, and if anybody comes for it they can have it. If no one does come, we’ll keep you ourselves; won’t we, baby? Drink the milk, now.”
“Wish we knew its name,” said Cricket.
“Let’s name it something ourselves,” suggested Eunice.
“To be sure. Don’t you know when Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses she named him Moses, herself? Oh, Eunice, let’s call her Mosina!”
“Oh, Cricket, how lovely! Just the thing! We didn’t find her in the bulrushes, but we did find her on some steps. Oh, you darling Mosina! I hope your mother won’t come for you!”
When the new arrival had finished her luncheon, and the children had had theirs, they carried Mosina off to their room. Zaidie and Helen immediately came toiling up from the nursery, to help entertain their guest. Fortunately she was not at all shy, and jabbered and gurgled in her unintelligible baby talk, showing the greatest readiness to be amused.
“La! she’s awful dirty,” said Eliza, looking in on them presently. “I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.”
“Let’s wash her, and dress her up in Kenneth’s things,” cried Cricket, straightway catching hold of Mosina, who speedily stood arrayed only in her own rosy skin; for the dirt which ’Liza had exclaimed at, was really chiefly on her hands and face.
Eunice drew the water in the bath-tub, and all four, with great laughing and excitement, superintended a very thorough scrubbing process, to the infinite amazement of the small child, who had probably never been so scrubbed before since she was born.
There was a small bruise on one side of the round, dimpled thigh, that presently caught Zaidie’s attention.
“Here’s another dirt-spot, Eunice,” she said, with an air of much importance at the discovery. It was so delightful to be the scrubber instead of the scrubbee. She seized the nail-brush, and squeezing in under Eunice’s arm, began vigorously applying it to the baby’s soft flesh. That small person instantly howled again.
“Stop, Zaidie! that isn’t dirt, it’s a bruise,” said Eunice, taking the nail-brush away. “Can’t you tell the difference?”
“Not unlets I poke ’em,” said Zaidie, looking surprised. “When I have one I always poke it, and if it hurts I know it’s a bruise. If it doesn’t I guess it’s dirt. I couldn’t tell it on the baby, could I?”
“You had better experiment on yourself,” said Cricket, laughing. “There, Miss Mosina, you’re pretty clean now, I think. Let’s take her out, Eunice. Put down the big bath-towel, Zaidie.”
Baby had endured the process in awed silence thus far, but when she stood dripping like a little cupid on the bath-towel, she patted her round, fat legs with every appearance of delight, and even attempted to climb back into the tub. It was probably her first experience of a plunge.
“You cunning thing!” cried Eunice, as rapturously as if she had never seen a small child tubbed before. “Cricket, won’t you run and ask ’Liza for some of Kenneth’s clothes? I don’t want to put her dirty ones on her again.”
Cricket ran off and presently came back, laughing.
“’Liza says she couldn’t dress such little beggars in gentlemen-folkses’ children’s clothes, but finally she let me have these old ones, that mamma had put by to give away. Let me see; where do you begin?”
“I know,” said Zaidie; and by the united efforts of all four, Mosina was presently arrayed.
This process had taken up a great part of the afternoon, and at this moment, Marjorie, who had just returned, came running up-stairs.
“Oh, have mamma and Kenneth come back so early?” she said, catching sight of a tiny figure in a familiar blue dress.
“No, but this is our new baby, and we’re going to adopt it, if its mother doesn’t come for it; and I don’t much believe she will, for it was pretty dirty, and probably she doesn’t care for it much, so Eunice and I are going to keep it,” poured out Cricket in a breath.
Marjorie dropped against the newel-post.
“Adopt it? What, in the name of common sense, are you talking about, Cricket? Where did the atom come from?”
“We found her in the street this morning,” explained Eunice, “and we couldn’t find anybody that belonged to her, so we had to bring her home, Marjorie. We couldn’t leave her to starve, could we? Poor little mite! she was freezing cold.”
Mosina, quite aware that she was under discussion, clung to the dress of her first friend, sucking her thumb, and staring from one to the other with her solemn blue eyes.
“But, my dear children,” began Marjorie, in a very superior, elder-sisterly tone, “that is perfectly absurd. With all the raft of children we have now, we can’t adopt a whole orphan asylum. Besides, her mother will be looking for her; probably she is nearly frantic. You must send her to the police station.”
“There!” cried Eunice, aggrieved, “that old police station again! Everybody says that. As if I would have this cunning thing, that loves me so, shut up in a horrid old black cell. Why, she’d be as afraid as anything.”
“They don’t put lost children in cells,” began Marjorie, and then stopped, not quite certain what they did do with them. “At any rate, you ought to take her there. People always do.”
“I shan’t do it,” said Eunice, stoutly.
“And, Marjorie, she’d be frightened to death among all those big men,” expostulated Cricket. “We have just got to keep her.”
“Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” compromised Marjorie. “I’ll send Jane around to the police station, and tell them she’s here, and describe her, and leave our address. If any one comes, they can send here.”
Just then the door-bell rang.
