“There’s one baby I could get for you easy. The mother’s a nice body—you see, the man went off. She’s waitress in a restaurant, an’ her little girl’s pretty as a pink, with a head full of yellow curls, an’ big blue eyes. She pays a dollar for her keep, ’ceptin’ nights an’ Sundays. An’ you’d be so good, which the woman ain’t. You couldn’t hurt a fly if you tried.”
“Oh, if I could have her!” cried Dil eagerly. A little girl with golden hair, curly hair. And a dollar would pay for the washing and ironing. The boys had been so good about fixing up things and buying her clothes that she had felt she must do all she could in return.
“I’ll see about it this very evenin’, dear.”
“Oh, thank you! thank you!”
The mother, a slim young thing, came to visit Dil on Sunday, with pretty, chubby, two-year-old Nelly, who was not shy at all, and came and hugged Dil at once. Her prettiness was not of the spirituelle order, as Bess’s would have been under any circumstances. The eyes were merry and wondering, the voice a gay little ripple, and comforted Dil curiously.
And through the course of the week several “incidental” ones came. It was like old times.
“Seems to me it’s nawful tough to be nussin’ kids,” said Patsey; “but, Dil, you’ve chirked up an’ grown reel jolly. You’re hankerin’ arter Bess, an’ can’t forgit. An’ ef the babies make ye chipper, let ’em come. I only hope they won’t take any fat offen yer bones, fer youse most a skiliton now. But sounds good to hear youse laugh agen.”
“I’d like just a little fat in my cheeks,” she made answer.
Patsey brought her home a white dress one day, and said they would all go down to Coney Island some Sunday.
“I wouldn’t dast to,” she said. “I’d be that afeared o’ meetin’ mother. She used to go las’ summer. An’ if she should find me—”