Rilla curled herself up in her bed and determined she would let him cry.
She had Morgan behind her for justification. Jims was warm, physically
comfortable--his cry wasn't the cry of pain--and had his little tummy
as full as was good for him. Under such circumstances it would be simply
spoiling him to fuss over him, and she wasn't going to do it. He could
cry until he got good and tired and ready to go to sleep again.
Then Rilla's imagination began to torment her. Suppose, she thought, I
was a tiny, helpless creature only five months old, with my father
somewhere in France and my poor little mother, who had been so worried
about me, in the graveyard. Suppose I was lying in a basket in a big,
black room, without one speck of light, and nobody within miles of me,
for all I could see or know. Suppose there wasn't a human being anywhere
who loved me--for a father who had never seen me couldn't love me very
much, especially when he had never written a word to or about me.
Wouldn't I cry, too? Wouldn't I feel just so lonely and forsaken and
frightened that I'd have to cry?
Rilla hopped out. She picked Jims out of his basket and took him into
her own bed. His hands were cold, poor mite. But he had promptly ceased
to cry. And then, as she held him close to her in the darkness, suddenly
Jims laughed--a real, gurgly, chuckly, delighted, delightful laugh.
"Oh, you dear little thing!" exclaimed Rilla.
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