“The little flannels an’ frock be thick an’ gude, but they doan’t shaw nought.”
“The thing’s most as easy to think a miracle as not. He looked up in my eyes as I brought un away, an’ after he’d got used to me he was quiet as a mouse an’ snuggled to me.”
“They’d have said ’twas a fairy changeling in my young days,” mused Mrs. Blanchard, “but us knaws better now. ’Tis a li’l gypsy, I’ll warn ’e, an’ some wicked mother’s dropped un under your nose to ease her conscience.”
“What will you do? Take un to the poorhouse?” asked Phoebe.
“‘Poorhouse’! Never! This be mine, tu. Mine! I was called to it, weern’t I? By a human voice or another, God knaws. Theer’s more to this than us can see.”
His women regarded him with blank amazement, and he showed considerable impatience tinder their eyes. It was clear he desired that they should dwell on no purely materialistic or natural explanation of the incident.
“Baan’t a gypsy baaby,” he said; “’tis awnly the legs an’ arms of un as be brown. His body’s as white as curds, an’ his hair’s no darker than our awn Willy’s was.”
“If it ban’t a gypsy’s, whose be it?” said Phoebe, turning to the infant for the first time.
“Mine now,” answered Will stoutly. “’Twas sent an’ give into my awn hand by one what knawed who ’twas they called. My heart warmed to un as he lay in my arms, an’ he’m mine hencefarrard.”
“What do ’e say, Phoebe?” asked Mrs. Blanchard, somewhat apprehensively. She knew full well how any such project must have struck her if placed in the bereaved mother’s position. Phoebe, however, made no immediate answer. Her sorrowful eyes were fixed on the child, now sitting happily on the elder woman’s lap.