That young
un there never lets up squalling, day or night. I've just got that I
take no notice of it."
Rilla tiptoed gingerly over to the cradle and more gingerly still pulled
down the dirty blanket. She had no intention of touching the baby--she
had no "knack with kids" either. She saw an ugly midget with a red,
distorted little face, rolled up in a piece of dingy old flannel. She
had never seen an uglier baby. Yet a feeling of pity for the desolate,
orphaned mite which had "come out of the everywhere" into such a dubious
"here", took sudden possession of her.
"What is going to become of the baby?" she asked.
"Lord knows," said Mrs. Conover candidly. "Min worried awful over that
before she died. She kept on a-saying 'Oh, what will become of my pore
baby' till it really got on my nerves. I ain't a-going to trouble myself
with it, I can tell yez. I brung up a boy that my sister left and he
skinned out as soon as he got to be some good and won't give me a mite
o' help in my old age, ungrateful whelp as he is. I told Min it'd have
to be sent to an orphan asylum till we'd see if Jim ever came back to
look after it. Would yez believe it, she didn't relish the idee. But
that's the long and short of it."
"But who will look after it until it can be taken to the asylum?"
persisted Rilla. Somehow the baby's fate worried her.
"S'pose I'll have to," grunted Mrs.
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