The Story of a Baby

“‘He is exactly twenty-one pounds,’ she said.”
E. T., Sydney .
Larrie had been carrying it for a long way and said it was quite time Dot took her turn.
Dot was arguing the point.
She reminded him of all athletic sports he had taken part in, and of all the prizes he had won; she asked him what was the use of being six-foot-two and an impossible number of inches round the chest if he could not carry a baby.
‘He is exactly twenty-one pounds,’ she said, ‘I weighed him on the kitchen scales yesterday, I should think a man of your size ought to be able to carry twenty-one pounds without grumbling so.’
‘But he’s on springs, Dot,’ he said, ‘just look at him, he’s never still for a minute, you carry him to the beginning of Lee’s orchard, and then I’ll take him again.’
Dot shook her head.
‘I’m very sorry, Larrie,’ she said, ‘but I really can’t. You know I didn’t want to bring the child, and when you insisted, I said to myself, you should carry him every inch of the way, just for your obstinacy.’
‘But you’re his mother,’ objected Larrie.
He was getting seriously angry, his arms ached unutterably, his clothes were sticking to his back, and twice the baby had poked a little fat thumb in his eye and made it water.
‘It’s easier for a woman to carry a child than a man’—poor Larrie was mopping his hot brow with his disengaged hand—‘everyone says so; don’t be a little sneak, Dot, my arm’s getting awfully cramped; here, for pity’s sake take him.’