“Yes’m, Ah’s comin’ wif it! Mah good stars, to t’ink ob a baby like dat ringin’ de bell in de middle ob de night! Mah lan’!”
“This baby didn’t ring the bell,” said Bert.
“Who did den?” demanded the fat, black cook. “Who did den, Ah axes yo’, Bert Bobbsey! Who did?”
Dinah’s question brought back to the minds of all the Bobbseys, including the smaller pair of twins, the things that had happened in the storm during the night.
“That’s right!” exclaimed Bert, snapping his fingers, “this baby couldn’t have rung our bell, and yet the bell certainly did ring!”
“And we first thought that it was daddy,” remarked Nan.
“I think I begin to see what happened,” Mr. Bobbsey said. “Bert, you were wrong in thinking the lightning rang the bell.”
“I guess I was,” Bert admitted. “It was the old lady with the green umbrella and the faded shawl who carried the basket with this baby in it.”
“Oh, Mother!” gasped Nan. “Do you think she had the baby in the basket all the while—in the rain—while she was going past our house in the afternoon? Do you think so?”
“And the queer old woman rang our bell,” went on Mr. Bobbsey. “She must have seen you children at the window when she passed earlier in the afternoon. She had made up her mind to abandon the baby—that is, leave it on some doorstep—and when she saw children here she must have said to herself that there was a kind mother here.”
“And there is!” cried Bert, looking lovingly at his mother. “The best in the world!”
“Thank you, dear,” murmured Mrs. Bobbsey softly, as she cuddled Baby May and fed her warm milk.
“So,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “when the queer old woman with the green umbrella saw there were children here, she waited until it was dark enough for her to leave the baby in the basket and then she hurried away. That’s what she did. She put the baby on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away.”
“That’s the reason I didn’t see any one when I looked through the glass door,” remarked Mrs. Bobbsey. “The old lady was gone.”
“Didn’t you see the baby in the basket, either?” asked Flossie, putting her littlest finger softly on the roselike cheek of Baby May.
“No, dear, I didn’t see the basket,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered. “It was off to one side, sheltered from the rain.”