"Oh! we could help!" cried Mary. "I could wash and dress it, I know I could, and I'd just love to."
"So could I!" said twelve-year-old Ruth. "We'd take turns, Mary and I. Do let's keep it, mother!"
"It's a great responsibility!" said Father Golden.
"Great Jemima!" said Mother Golden, with a sniff. "If I couldn't take the responsibility of a baby, I'd give up."
Father Golden's mind moved slowly, and while he was meditating a reply, his wife issued various commands, and went through some intricate feminine manoeuvres, with the effect of increased fluffiness on the baby's part. In five minutes she was feeding the child with warm milk from a spoon, and proclaiming that he ate "like a Major!"
The boys, gaining more and more confidence, were now close at her knee, and watched the process with eager eyes.
"He's swallering like anything!" cried Lemuel. "I can see him do it with his throat, same as anybody."
"See him grab the spoon!" said Joseph. "My! ain't he strong? Can he talk, mother?"
"Joe, you chuckle-head!" said Adam, who was sixteen, and knew most things. "How can he talk, when he hasn't got any teeth?"
"Uncle 'Rastus hasn't got any teeth," retorted Joseph, "and he talks like a buzz-saw."
"Hush, Joseph!" said Mother Golden, reprovingly. "Your Uncle 'Rastus is a man of years."
"Baby _has_ got a tooth, too, Adam!" Mother Golden continued, triumphantly. "I feel it pricking through the gum this minute. And he so good, and laughing like a sunflower! Did it hurt him, then, a little precious man? he shall have a nice ring to-morrow day, to bitey on, so he shall!"
"I suppose, then, he must be as much as a week old," hazarded Adam, in an offhand tone. "They are never born with teeth, are they, unless they are going to be Richard the Thirds, or something wonderful?"
"Perhaps he is!" said Ruth. "He looks wonderful enough for Richard the Twentieth, or anything."
But--"A week old!" said Mother Golden. "It's time there was a baby in this house, if you don't know better than that, Adam. About six months old I call him, and as pretty a child as ever I saw, even my own."
She looked half-defiantly at Father Golden, who returned the look with one of mild deprecation.
"I was only thinking of the care 'twould be to you, mother," he said. "We're bound to make inquiries, and report the case, and so forth; but if nothing comes of that, we might keep the child for a spell, and see how things turn out."