The Baby in the Cottage [pp. 201-204]

THE LADIES' REPOSITOR Z.
brandy were taken. These lead to ruin by a
quicker way than ale or beer; because they are
more fiery and burn with a fiercer flame.
You can understand now why a shadow had
rested on the mother of these children, and why
it had grown darker every day.
The baby was a year old. Hester, or Hetty
as she was called, had just passed her tenth
birthday, and Mary was seven. So young, and
motherless!
At first thought it seems as if it would have
been better for them to be fatherless also. But
God knows what is best always. His tender
care was over these little ones, and over their
father too.
Now, that baby was one of the loveliest things
alive-so sweet and pure; so gentle, and yet so
full of infantile joy; and so winning in all his
ways that none could help loving him.
This neighbor and that offered to take him
when his mother died, but Hetty, who had
seemed to grow into a woman all at once, said,
"No, no, I can't part from baby."
Then a lady, who had no children, took the
half-drunken, wretched father aside and talked
to him till he consented to let her have the baby
and bring him up as her own. She wanted to
carry him right off, but the miller said, "No, not
till to-morrow."
"Better let me take him now," urged the lady.
For Hetty's sake the miller repeated his "no."
He knew how great was her love for the baby,
and there was enough of tenderness left in his
heart to keep him from adding this to her grief
on the day of her mother's burial.
Now it happened that Hetty, unknown to her
father and the woman, had heard what had
passed between them. At first she was almost
beside herself with pain. It was as much as
her heart could bear to lose her mother, and she
felt that to take baby also, would, as she said
afterward, "just kill her."
The funeral over, all the neighbors went home,
except two more tender-hearted and pitying
than the rest. It seemed cruel to them to turn
their backs upon these two little girls and the
sweet baby left motherless.
One of them had been a very dear friend of
the miller's wife, and she grieved for her loss as
for that of a beloved sister.
Taking Hetty by the hand, and leading her
into her mother's room, now so still and desolate, she shut the door, and putting her arms
about the child, burst into tears and wept over
her for a long time before she could get calm
enough to speak.
"I want to talk with you, Hetty," she said, at
length, as she sat down and composed herself.
The blinding tears dried out of Hetty's eyes,
and she fixed them wistfully on the woman's
face.
"What are you going to do?" Ah, that was
the hardest of all questions to answer.
Hetty's eyes rested for a little while on the
woman's face, and then dropped to the floor.
Raising them quickly, after a moment, she
replied:
"If they'11 only let me keep baby, Mrs.
Wilder." The thought of his being taken away
came back so vividly to the mind of Hetty that
she could not bear it. Her lips quivered, and
she burst again into tears.
"I thought you were going to keep him," said
the neighbor.
"Mrs. Florence wants him, and says she'11
take care of him just as if he was her own."
"I do n't know that," remarked the neighbor.
"If Mrs. Florence will take him " "It's very kind in her," said Hetty, interrupting the sentence, "and I am sure she would
be good to him. But indeed, Mrs. Wilder, I
can't let him go. I feel just as if I should die
if they were to take him away. You don't
know how I do love him."
"But you are so young, Hetty. Almost a
child yourself. You can't take care of baby.
And then who is to be housekeeper?"
"I've thought it all over, Mrs. Wilder-over
and over again-and Mary and I can do it all,"
said Hetty.
"Mary and you! Why, Mary is only seven
years old," answered the neighbor.
"She's a bandy little thing for all that. O0,
we can get along, if they won't take baby."
"What does your father say about it? Has
Mrs. Florence spoken to him?"
"Yes; I heard them talking it over. Mrs.
Florence wanted to take the baby righlt off, but
father said, wait till to-morrow."
"It would, perhaps, be better for the baby"
" It would n't be better for any body," spoke
out Hetty, in a strong and decided manner.
"And in particular it would n't be for father."
"Why not for y)our father?" asked Mrs.
Wilder.
Hetty's face grew hot, and then pale; and
her voice choked a little at first, as she answered:
"You know about father, how dreadful it is.
It will get worse if baby goes. I'm sure of
that. He loves baby. And now mother's gone,
I've thought his loving baby so might h elp him
to-to-"
Hetty paused; she could not speak the word
that was on her tongue, but the neighbor understood her.
202