“Hello!” commented Jimmy. “Going in for baby farming?”
“Peg!” Archibald’s voice held alarm and protest. It brought Pegeen out from the kitchen, frying pan in hand.
“Hello, Jimmy! Going to stay for breakfast? My, what a lot of fish!”
Suddenly she saw the question in Archibald’s face and her glance followed his to the occupant of the box.
“Oh, yes,” she explained. “That’s Boots—Mrs. McKenzie’s Boots. His mother’s sick and there isn’t anybody except old Granny McKenzie and she can’t possibly do everything and take care of Boots too. I ran over there this morning to see how sick Mrs. McKenzie was and everything was a mess and the poor old lady was most crazy. I’d have stayed, only of course there’s you; so I helped tidy things up and then I just brought Boots along with me. I knew you’d want me to. He won’t be a mite of trouble. I never saw such a good baby. I can look after him here, daytimes and take him home with me nights. He’s so cunning. Look at him laugh.”
She dropped on her knees beside the box and waggled her head at the baby, who discarded his wide-eyed solemnity for a dimpling, gurgling hilarity that would have disarmed the most confirmed baby hater.
“What d’ you guess Jizo’d think of him?” Peg asked enthusiastically. She was so happy in her new responsibility, so utterly confident of Archibald’s readiness to share it with her, that the protest faded out of him. He stooped and experimentally poked at the baby’s ribs with a fishy forefinger which Boots promptly grabbed, crowing in triumph as he held fast to it.
Something curious happened to the stooping man. He wasn’t at all sure what it was but knew that it had to do with the feeling of that tiny hand curled round his finger. The hand was so absurdly small and soft and clinging. He had never noticed babies. People had them, but they had always seemed to him one of the necessary evils, mitigated in his own class by the existence of vigilant nurses who kept their charges out of sight and hearing.
He wouldn’t have believed that there could be something extraordinarily pleasant about having a baby hang fast to one’s forefinger and jump up and down with pride in the feat.
“Strong little beggar, isn’t he?” he said with a shamefaced glance at Jimmy that bespoke masculine sympathy for his embarrassment But Jimmy was used to babies.