`` I -- I ca n'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 ai n'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 , ` tai n't mine but I guess yez kin take it . Do n'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 ai n'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 did n't worry him none that there were n't much in the way o ' eatables to put in the dishes . ''
For the first time XXXXX 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 .
about along as at if in of on that to