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The Story of a Baby


[Decoration: NAVTILVS SERIES]




[Illustration: "'He is exactly twenty-one pounds,' she said."]




THE STORY OF A BABY

BY ETHEL TURNER


[Decoration: The Navtilvs Series]

WARD LOCK & BOWDEN: LIMITED
LONDON · NEW YORK & MELBOURNE
1896




TO THE BEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD

E. T., _Sydney_.




CONTENTS


  CHAP.                                PAGE
     I. THE BURDEN OF IT                  1

    II. THE RED ROAD COUNTRY             11

   III. DOT AND LARRIE FALL OUT          21

    IV. THE 'LITTLE MOTHER'              33

     V. MORE RIFTS IN THE LUTE           45

    VI. LARRIE THE LOAFER                58

   VII. A POCKET MADAME MELBA            73

  VIII. PICTURES IN THE FIRE             83

    IX. A CONFLICT OF WILLS              97

     X. A DARN ON A DRESS               111

    XI. A QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP         124

   XII. A LITTLE DIPLOMAT               131

  XIII. DOT GOES BABY LIFTING           140

   XIV. THE WHEEL IN THE BRAIN          147

    XV. SULLIVAN WOOSTER, GENTLEMAN     154




THE STORY OF A BABY




CHAPTER I

THE BURDEN OF IT


Larrie had been carrying it for a long way and said it was quite time
Dot took her turn.

Dot was arguing the point.

She reminded him of all athletic sports he had taken part in, and of
all the prizes he had won; she asked him what was the use of being
six-foot-two and an impossible number of inches round the chest if he
could not carry a baby.

Larrie gave her an unexpected glance and moved the baby to his other
arm; he was heated and unhappy, there seemed absolutely no end to the
red, red road they were traversing, and Dot, as well as refusing to
help to carry the burden, laughed aggravatingly at him when he said it
was heavy.

'He is exactly twenty-one pounds,' she said, 'I weighed him on the
kitchen scales yesterday, I should think a man of your size ought to
be able to carry twenty-one pounds without grumbling so.'

'But he's on springs, Dot,' he said, 'just look at him, he's never
still for a minute, you carry him to the beginning of Lee's orchard,
and then I'll take him again.'

Dot shook her head.

'I'm very sorry, Larrie,' she said, 'but I really can't. You know I
didn't want to bring the child, and when you insisted, I said to myself,
you should carry him every inch of the way, just for your obstinacy.'

'But you're his mother,' objected Larrie.

He was getting seriously angry, his arms ached unutterably, his clothes
were sticking to his back, and twice the baby had poked a little fat
thumb in his eye and made it water.

'But you're its father,' Dot said sweetly.

'It's easier for a woman to carry a child than a man'--poor Larrie was
mopping his hot brow with his disengaged hand--'everyone says so; don't
be a little sneak, Dot, my arm's getting awfully cramped; here, for
pity's sake take him.'

Dot shook her head again.

'Would you have me break my vow, St Lawrence?' she said.

She looked provokingly cool and unruffled as she walked along by his
side; her gown was white, with transparent puffy sleeves, her hat was
white and very large, she had little white canvas shoes, long white
Suéde gloves, and she carried a white parasol.

'I'm hanged,' said Larrie, and he stopped short in the middle of the
road, 'look here, my good woman, are you going to take your baby, or
are you not?'

Dot revolved her sunshade round her little sweet face.

'No, my good man,' she said, 'I don't propose to carry your baby one
step.'

'Then I shall drop it,' said Larrie. He held it up in a threatening
position by the back of its crumpled coat, but Dot had gone sailing on.

'Find a soft place,' she called, looking back over her shoulder once
and seeing him still standing in the road.

'Little minx,' he said under his breath.

Then his mouth squared itself; ordinarily it was a pleasant mouth, much
given to laughter and merry words; but when it took that obstinate look,
one could see capabilities for all manner of things.

He looked carefully around. By the roadside there was a patch of soft,
green grass, and a wattle bush, yellow-crowned, beautiful. He laid the
child down in the shade of it, he looked to see there were no ants or
other insects near; he put on the bootee that was hanging by a string
from the little rosy foot and he stuck the india-rubber comforter in
its mouth. Then he walked quietly away and caught up to Dot.

'Well?' she said, but she looked a little startled at his empty arms;
she drooped the sunshade over the shoulder nearest to him, and gave a
hasty, surreptitious glance backward. Larrie strode along.

'You look fearfully ugly when you screw up your mouth like that,' she
said, looking up at his set side face.

'You're an unnatural mother, Dot, that's what you are,' he returned
hotly. 'By Jove, if I was a woman, I'd be ashamed to act as you do. You
get worse every day you live. I've kept excusing you to myself, and
saying you would get wiser as you grew older, and instead, you seem
more childish every day.'

She looked childish. She was very, very small in stature, very slightly
and delicately built. Her hair was in soft gold-brown curls, as short
as a boy's; her eyes were soft, and wide, and tender, and beautiful as
a child's. When she was happy they were the colour of that blue, deep
violet we call the Czar, and when she grew thoughtful, or sorrowful,
they were like the heart of a great, dark purple <DW29>. She was not
particularly beautiful, only very fresh, and sweet, and lovable. Larrie
once said she always looked like a baby that has been freshly bathed
and dressed, and puffed with sweet violet powder, and sent out into the
world to refresh tired eyes.

That was one of his courtship sayings, more than a year ago when she was
barely seventeen. She was eighteen now, and he was telling her she was
an unnatural mother.

'Why, the child wouldn't have had its bib on, only I saw to it,' he
said, in a voice that increased in excitement as he dwelt on the
enormity.

'Dear me,' said Dot, 'that was very careless of Peggie, I must really
speak to her about it.'

'I shall shake you some day, Dot,' Larrie said,'shake you till your
teeth rattle. Sometimes I can hardly keep my hands off you.'

His brow was gloomy, his boyish face troubled, vexed.

And Dot laughed. Leaned against the fence skirting the road that seemed
to run to eternity, and laughed outrageously.

Larrie stopped too. His face was very white and square-looking, his dark
eyes held fire. He put his hands on the white, exaggerated shoulders of
her muslin dress and turned her round.

'Go back to the bottom of the hill this instant, and pick up the child
and carry it up here,' he said.

'Go and insert your foolish old head in a receptacle for
_pommes-de-terre_,' was Dot's flippant retort.

Larrie's hands pressed harder, his chin grew squarer.

'I'm in earnest, Dot, deadly earnest. I order you to fetch the child,
and I intend you to obey me,' he gave her a little shake to enforce the
command. 'I am your master, and I intend you to know it from this day.'

Dot experienced a vague feeling of surprise at the fire in the eyes that
were nearly always clear, and smiling, and loving, then she twisted
herself away.

'Pooh,' she said, 'you're only a stupid overgrown, passionate boy,
Larrie. You my master! You're nothing in the world but my husband.'

'Are you going?' he said in a tone he had never used before to her. 'Say
Yes or No, Dot, instantly.'

'No,' said Dot, stormily.

Then they both gave a sob of terror, their faces blanched, and they
began to run madly down the hill.

Oh the long, long way they had come, the endless stretch of red, red
road that wound back to the gold-tipped wattles, the velvet grass, and
their baby!

Larrie was a fleet, wonderful runner. In the little cottage where they
lived, manifold silver cups and mugs bore witness to it, and he was
running for life now, but Dot nearly outstripped him.

She flew over the ground, hardly touching it, her arms were
outstretched, her lips moving. They fell down together on their knees by
their baby, just as three furious, hard-driven bullocks thundered by,
filling the air with dust and bellowing.

The baby was blinking happily up at a great fat golden beetle that was
making a lazy way up the wattle. It had lost its 'comforter' and was
sucking its thumb thoughtfully. It had kicked off its white knitted
boots, and was curling its pink toes up in the sunshine with great
enjoyment.

'Baby!' Larrie said. The big fellow was trembling in every limb.

'_Baby!_' said Dot. She gathered it up in her little shaking arms, she
put her poor white face down upon it, and broke into such pitiful tears
and sobs that it wept too. Larrie took them both into his arms, and sat
down on a fallen tree. He soothed them, he called them a thousand
tender, beautiful names; he took off Dot's hat and stroked her little
curls, he kissed his baby again and again; he kissed his wife. When they
were all quite calm and the bullocks ten miles away, they started again.

'I'll carry him,' said Larrie.

'Ah no, let me,' Dot said.

'Darling, you're too tired--see, you can hold his hand across my
shoulder.'

'No, no, give him to me--my arms ache without him.'

'But the hill--my big baby!'

'Oh, I _must_ have him--Larrie, _let_ me--see, he is so light--why, he
is nothing to carry.'




CHAPTER II

THE RED ROAD COUNTRY


In cool weather the Red Road was very pleasant walking. It wound up hill
and down dale for many a mile till it reached Hornsby, and branched away
into different country.

All the way there were gum trees--gum trees and fences; here and there
were closer palings and garden shrubs indicating human residence, but
they were far apart and the road was very lonely. Parallel to it and
showing in places between the trees was the single line of the railway.
It did not spoil the scenery at all, it rather gave a friendly look to
it and reminded the pedestrian that in spite of the bush silences, the
towering trees,