HE big doll in Miss Maria's shop window had been for years the model after which the village infants were clothed. When Miss Maria's baby wore thread lace, so also did every baby in Moon Center. When blind embroidery became the fashion, the doll wore its stiffened glories smilingly, although the other infants shouted lusty rebellion. And when everything gave way to hem-stitched flounces, according to the agent who made semi-quarterly visits im a mud-spattered buggy, the baby in the window blossomed out in a complete hem-stitched outfit, with tiny tucks and feather-stitching. The next christening at the church was an orgy of hemstitching, accomplished at night after milking, at no one knows what cost to work-hardened fingers and tired eyes.
Miss Maria was thinking of these things as she bit off her thread with a snap and laid the finished garment on the table before her. It was a sheer white dress, trimmed with tiny frills of lace and insertion, and beside it lay the skirts to match—the doll's new summer wardrobe. Miss Maria picked up the lamp, and, going into the darkened store, took the doll carefully out of the window.
“It's bed time, Elizabeth,” she said, putting the lamp on the counter, and drawing out the box in which Elizabeth had been shipped from the city, and in which she still lay protected from the dust at night. Miss Maria pulled down the blue shades and sat for a moment on one of the stiff-backed chairs with the doll om her lap. “Ten years to-day I've had you,” she went on, smoothing back the doll's yellow curls, “and four times every year I've sat up like an old fool and made you new clothes. That makes forty dresses, most of them lying in the trunk getting yellow. You aren't hard on your clothes, that's sure, if you aren't much company.”
Outside, steps came rapidly down the street, paused a moment, and went on. Miss Maria rose, yawned, and picked up the lamp.
“Well,” she said, looking at the clock, “I reckon I'd better wash your hair and put it in kids. Having the stove lit the last few days has made it kind of grimy.”
She pushed into their places the bolts on the door, and turned to go. Then she stopped suddenly and listened. Outside, above the rustling of the maple leaves, she heard the fitful cry of a small child.
“Nice hour to have a baby out!” she snapped, fumbling at the bolt. “It would be just like the Jim Blakes, and their baby's got a weak chest.”
She threw open the door, letting the lamp-light stream out over the deserted street, and looked around her anxiously. Then with a little cry she stooped, and, picking up a shawl-wrapped bundle which lay on the upper step, retreated hurriedly into the store and bolted the door.
Once safe in her tiny sitting-room, Miss Maria unrolled the shawl and looked critically at its contents. The baby stared fixedly at the lamp and sucked a wrinkled thumb noisily.
“Seems like I ought to know those features,” mused Miss Maria. “If it wasn't for the nose, I'd say it was a Simmons youngster. It's certainly got the Simmons jaw, and goodness knows they could give a baby away without missing it. But those curls aren't Simmons.” Here her eyes fell on the shawl, dirty, faded, and ragged. Miss Maria stiffened and glared at the inoffensive baby. “Humph! So she thought I'd forgot that shawl,” she said grimly. “I'm not in the habit of forgetting things that aren't paid for. It must be six years since the little idiot ran off to get married, and took a trunk full of things she'd no notion of settling for.” The baby caught her finger in its small, restless hand and conveyed it eagerly to its mouth. “But you aren't responsible for a worthless mother, baby, and I reckon you'll be a nice little thing when you're clean.”
Miss Maria had officiated at the inaugural tubbing of half the village; hence it was with no unskilled fingers that she got together materials for the bath. The baby emerged even pinker from the scrubbing; and when at last, fed and warm, he dropped comfortably to sleep, she sat gently rocking before the empty fireplace, the tiny bundle close in her arms, and a soft light shining through her steel-rimmed spectacles. Elizabeth lay forgotten and neglected on the counter in the shop that night, while close beside Miss Maria's four-poster the wooden box, set on two chairs and filled with pillows, made a comfortable bed for the new member of the family.