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 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.
“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.”
Under Susan’s directions a ration of milk and water was prepared, and a bottle obtained from the doctor’s office. Then Rilla lifted the baby out of the soup tureen and fed it. She brought down the old basket of her own infancy from the attic and laid the now sleeping baby in it. She put the soup tureen away in the pantry. Then she sat down to think things over.
The result of her thinking things over was that she went to Susan when the baby woke.
“I’m going to see what I can do, Susan. I can’t let that poor little thing go back to Mrs. Conover. Tell me how to wash and dress it.”
Under Susan’s supervision Rilla bathed the baby. Susan dared not help, other than by suggestion, for the doctor was in the living-room and might pop in at any moment. Susan had learned by experience that when Dr. Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was. Rilla set her teeth and went ahead. In the name of goodness, how many wrinkles and kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn’t enough of it to take hold of. Oh, suppose she let it slip into the water — it was so wobbly! If it would only stop howling like that! How could such a tiny morsel make such an enormous noise. Its shrieks could be heard over Ingleside from cellar to attic.
> “Am I really hurting it much, Susan, do you suppose?” she asked piteously.
“No, dearie. Most new babies hate like poison to be washed. You are real knacky for a beginner. Keep your hand under its back, whatever you do, and keep cool.”
Keep cool! Rilla was oozing perspiration at every pore. When the baby was dried and dressed and temporarily quieted with another bottle she was as limp as a rag.
“What must I do with it tonight, Susan?”
A baby by day was dreadful enough; a baby by night was unthinkable.
“Set the basket on a chair by your bed and keep it covered. You will have to feed it once or twice in the night, so you would better take the oil heater upstairs. If you cannot manage it call me and I will go, doctor or no doctor.”
“But, Susan, if it cries?”
The baby, however, did not cry. It was surprisingly good — perhaps because its poor little stomach was filled with proper food. It slept most of the night but Rilla did not. She was afraid to go to sleep for fear something would happen to the baby. She prepared its three o’clock ration with a grim determination that she would not call Susan. Oh, was she dreaming? Was it really she, Rilla Blythe, who had got into this absurd predicament? She did not care if the Germans were near Paris — she did not care if they were in Paris — if only the baby wouldn’t cry or choke or smother or have convulsions. Babies did have convulsions, didn’t they? Oh, why had she forgotten to ask Susan what she must do if the baby had convulsions? She reflected rather bitterly that father was very considerate of mother’s and Susan’s health, but what about hers? Did he think she could continue to exist if she never got any sleep? But she was not going to back down now — not she. She would look after this detestable little animal if it killed her. She would get a book on baby hygiene and be beholden to nobody. She would never go to father for advice — she wouldn’t bother mother — and she would only condescend to Susan in dire extremity. They would all see!
Thus it came about that Mrs. Blythe, when she returned home two nights later and asked Susan where Rilla was, was electrified by Susan’s composed reply.
“She’s upstairs, Mrs. Dr. dear, putting her baby to bed.”
CHAPTER VIII
RILLA DECIDES
Families and individuals alike soon become used to new conditions and accept them unquestioningly. By the time a week had elapsed it seemed as it the Anderson baby had always been at Ingleside. After the first three distracted nights Rilla began to sleep again, waking automatically to attend to her charge on schedule time. She bathed and fed and dressed it as skilfully as if she had been doing it all her life. She liked neither her job nor the baby any the better; she still handled it as gingerly as if it were some kind of a small lizard, and a breakable lizard at that; but she did her work thoroughly and there was not a cleaner, better-cared-for infant in Glen St. Mary. She even took to weighing the creature every day and jotting the result down in her diary; but sometimes she asked herself pathetically why unkind destiny had ever led her down the Anderson lane on that fatal day. Shirley, Nan, and Di did not tease her as much as she had expected. They all seemed rather stunned by the mere fact of Rilla adopting a war-baby; perhaps, too, the doctor had issued instructions. Walter, of course, never had teased her over anything; one day he told her she was a brick.
“It took more courage for you to tackle that five pounds of new infant, Rilla-my-Rilla, than it would be for Jem to face a mile of Germans. I wish I had half your pluck,” he said ruefully.
Rilla was very proud of Walter’s approval; nevertheless, she wrote gloomily in her diary that night: —
“I wish I could like the baby a little bit. It would make things easier. But I don’t. I’ve heard people say that when you took care of a baby you got fond of it — but you don’t — I don’t, anyway. And it’s a nuisance — it interferes with everything. It just ties me down — and now of all times when I’m trying to get the Junior Reds started. And I couldn’t go to Alice Clow’s party last night and I was just dying to. Of course father isn’t really unreasonable and I can always get an hour or two off in the evening when it’s necessary; but I knew he wouldn’t stand for my being out half the night and leaving Susan or mother to see to the baby. I suppose it was just as well, because the thing did take colic — or something — about one o’clock. It didn’t kick or stiffen out, so I knew that, according to Morgan, it wasn’t crying for temper; and it wasn’t hungry and no pins were sticking in it. It screamed till it was black in the face; I got up and heated water and put the hot-water bottle on its stomach, and it howled worse than ever and drew up its poor wee thin legs. I was afraid I had burnt it but I don’t believe I did. Then I walked the floor with it although ‘Morgan on Infants’ says that should never be done. I walked miles, and oh, I was so tired and discouraged and mad — yes, I was. I could have shaken the creature if it had been big enough to shake, but it wasn’t. Father was out on a case, and mother had had a headache and Susan is squiffy because when she and Morgan differ I insist upon going by what Morgan says, so I was determined I wouldn’t call her unless I had to.
“Finally, Miss Oliver came in. She has rooms with Nan now, not me, all because of the baby, and I am broken-hearted about it. I miss our long talks after we went to bed, so much. It was the only time I ever had her to myself. I hated to think the baby’s yells had wakened her up, for she has so much to bear now. Mr. Grant is at Valcartier, too, and Miss Oliver feels it dreadfully, though she is splendid about it. She thinks he will never come back and her eyes just break my heart — they are so tragic. She said it wasn’t the baby that woke her — she hadn’t been able to sleep because the Germans are so near Paris; she took the little wretch and laid it flat on its stomach across her knee and thumped its back gently a few times, and it stopped shrieking and went right off to sleep and slept like a lamb the rest of the night. I didn’t — I was too worn out.
“I’m having a perfectly dreadful time getting the Junior Reds started. I succeeded in getting Betty Mead as president, and I am secretary, but they put Jen Vickers in as treasurer and I despise her. She is the sort of girl who calls any clever, handsome, or distinguished people she knows slightly by their first names — behind their backs. And she is sly and two-faced. Una doesn’t mind, of course. She is willing to do anything that comes to hand and never minds whether she has an office or not. She is just a perfect angel, while I am only angelic in spots and demonic in other spots. I wish Walter would take a fancy to her, but he never seems to think about her in that way, although I heard him say once she was like a tea rose. She is too. And she gets imposed upon, just because she is so sweet and willing; but I don’t allow people to impose on Rilla Blythe and ‘that you may tie to,’ as Susan says.
“Just as I expected, Olive was determined we should have lunch served at our meetings. We had a battle royal over it. The majority was against eats and now the minority is sulking. Irene Howard was on the eats side and she has been very cool to me ever since and it makes me feel miserable. I wonder if mother and Mrs. Elliott have problems in the Senior Society too. I suppose they have, but they just go on calmly in spite of everything. I go on — but not calmly — I rage and cry — but I do it all in private and blow off steam in this diary; and when it’s over I vow I’ll show them. I never sulk. I detest people who sulk. Anyhow, we’ve got the society started and we’re to meet once a week, and we’re all going to learn to knit.
“Shirley and I went down to the station again to try to induce Dog Monday to come home but we failed. All the family have tried and failed. Three days after Jem had gone Walter went down and brought Monday home by main force in the buggy and shut him up for three days. Then Monday went on a hunger strike and howled like a Banshee night and day. We had to let him out or he would have starved to death.
“So we have decided to let him alone and father has arranged with the butcher near the station to feed him with bones and scraps. Besides, one of us goes down nearly every day to take him something. He just lies c
urled up in the shipping-shed, and every time a train comes in he will rush over to the platform, wagging his tail expectantly, and tear around to every one who comes off the train. And then, when the train goes and he realizes that Jem has not come, he creeps dejectedly back to his shed, with his disappointed eyes, and lies down patiently to wait for the next train. Mr. Gray, the station master, says there are times when he can hardly help crying from sheer sympathy. One day some boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was known to take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher’s shop and chased them through the village. Nobody has molested Monday since.
“Kenneth Ford has gone back to Toronto. He came up two evenings ago to say good-bye. I wasn’t home — some clothes had to be made for the baby and Mrs. Meredith offered to help me, so I was over at the manse, and I didn’t see Kenneth. Not that it matters; he told Nan to say good-bye to Spider for him and tell me not to forget him wholly in my absorbing maternal duties. If he could leave such a frivolous, insulting message as that for me it shows plainly that our beautiful hour on the sandshore meant nothing to him and I am not going to think about him or it again.
“Fred Arnold was at the manse and walked home with me. He is the new Methodist minister’s son and very nice and clever, and would be quite handsome if it were not for his nose. It is a really dreadful nose. When he talks of commonplace things it does not matter so much, but when he talks of poetry and ideals the contrast between his nose and his conversation is too much for me and I want to shriek with laughter. It is really not fair, because everything he said was perfectly charming and if somebody like Kenneth had said it I would have been enraptured. When I listened to him with my eyes cast down I was quite fascinated; but as soon as I looked up and saw his nose the spell was broken. He wants to enlist, too, but can’t because he is only seventeen. Mrs. Elliott met us as we were walking through the village and could not have looked more horrified if she caught me walking with the Kaiser himself. Mrs. Elliott detests the Methodists and all their works. Father says it is an obsession with her.”
The Complete Works of L M Montgomery Page 193
