“Hay! Can’ chu wait?” he bawled. “Oh, my good-nuss! For heavenses’ sakes! Dog-gone it. Can’ chu wait! I can’t carry this baby all the way!”
But he did. Panting, staggering, perspiring, with Willamilla never abating her complaint for an instant, and Hossifer warning him fiercely at every one of his many attempts to set her down, Laurence struggled on, far behind the cheery vanguard. Five blocks of anguish he covered before he finally arrived at Elsie Threamer’s gate, whence this unfortunate expedition had set out.
Elsie and Daisy were standing near the gate, looking thoughtfully at Willamilla’s grandmother, who was seated informally on the curbstone, and whistling to herself.
Laurence staggered to her. “Oh, my! Oh, my!” he quavered, and would have placed Willamilla in her grandmother’s arms, but once more Hossifer interfered—for his was a mind bent solely upon one idea at a time—and Laurence had to straighten himself quickly.
“Make him quit that!” he remonstrated. “He’s done it to me more than five hunderd times, an’ I’m mighty tired of all this around here!”
But the coloured woman seemed to have no idea that he was saying anything important, or even that he was addressing himself to her. She rolled her eyes, indeed, but not in his direction, and continued her whistling.
“Listen! Look!” Laurence urged her. “It’s Willie Miller! I wish he was dead; then I wouldn’t hold him any longer, I bet you! I’d just throw him away like I ought to!” And as she went on whistling, not even looking at him, he inquired despairingly: “My goodness, what’s the matter around here, anyways?”
“Elsie!” a voice called from a window of the house.
“Yes, mamma.”
“Come in, dear. Come in quickly.”