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.
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