“Surely not, Joe.” Accordingly I took up a lamp, and stepped with it into the next room—the sitting-room, in which Ralph’s crib was stationed. The crib stood close to the window, which was open. I was surprised that Jessie had left it so, knowing, as she did, that Ralph caught cold with painful facility. Joe cast a disapproving look at the opening as we stood by the crib side, but, fearful of awakening the little sleeper, he said nothing. All children are lovely in their sleep, but as I held the lamp aloft, while we admiringly surveyed this one, I think the same idea occurred to us both—that never was there one more beautiful than our Ralph. Joe, cautiously advancing a horny fore-finger, softly touched the moist, dimpled little hand that lay relaxed outside the coverlet. Then he drew the coverlet a little closer over the baby sleeper’s shoulders, and, noiselessly closing the window, turned away with a sigh that belonged, I felt, not to Ralph, but to some one whom he seemed to the old man to resemble.
When we were again in the kitchen, he said decidedly: “I ’clar fo’ hit, Miss Jessie—fo’ hit mus’ ’a’ been yo, w’at done hit; fo’ yo’ said Miss Leslie done been gone—I’se ’sprised fur to see yo’ a-puttin’ dat chile ter bed wid the winder beside him wide open, an’ the nights plumb cole an’ varmints a wanderin’ roun’—”
“Why, Joe, what are you talking about? I never left it open. I’d be afraid that that cat of Ralph’s would jump in and wake him, if nothing else. When it’s open at all I’m careful to open it from the top; but it’s so cool to-night that I didn’t open it.”
“I jess reckons yo’ furgot ter shet it, honey,” Joe insisted.
“I’m quite sure it hasn’t been opened,” returned Jessie, who did not give up a point easily. I could see, though I had no doubt that Joe was right, that the matter really puzzled her.
“Ralph, he de libin’ picter ob Mas’r Ralph, w’en he was a little feller, an’ hit in’ no ways likely dat I gwine ter set still an’ see Mas’r Ralph’s onliest son lose his ’heritance; not ef I can holp it,” Joe remarked reflectively, after Jessie had again proclaimed that she did not leave the window open.
The words reminded me of the danger which still threatened us, in spite of the providential help that Joe’s coming had brought us.
A new idea occurred to me. “Jessie,” I said, “there’s nothing to hinder your going down to town as early as you please to-night, now that Joe has come, and Mr. Wilson will be left free to go with you.”
Jessie sprang to her feet, as if she would go on the instant.
“That is so!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Joe, how glad I am that you came just as you did!”