“Why, sick-cure, of course,” answered Cricket, promptly. “Won’t that do? In the first scene, Kenneth would be sick—”
“And I’d be the doctor,” put in Hilda.
“And I’d be his mother,” went on Cricket.
“And I’d come and see him and give him some pills—”
“And in the next scene we’d cure him.”
“I ’on’t tate any pills,” announced the baby behind them, unexpectedly, and very decidedly.
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Hilda, impatiently, “they won’t taste bad—just little make-believe pills.”
“I don’t lite ’em,” wailed the baby, rebelling, for the first time, against his elders. He was tired, poor little fellow, for he had gone through many experiences that afternoon. He had been wound on to a lap-board with shawls, to represent an Esquimau baby. He had been placed on a very insecure table, with newspaper wings tied on his bare shoulders, to pose as a Cupid. Besides this, he had been Daniel in the lion’s den, with Zaidee and Helen as lions, growling and spitting so frightfully around him, and making such an alarming pretence of eating him up, that he had fled, in sudden dismay, to the audience, to take refuge behind Cricket, who was always his protection in times of trouble.
Now, the suggestion of pills was more than the little fellow could stand.
“Just pretend, baby dear,” coaxed Cricket. “See, I’ll sit down here with this funny old cap on, and this shawl over my shoulders, and I’ll play I’m your mamma,” dressing herself as she spoke. “And then,” she went on, “you can lie on my lap, this way, and Hilda will put on Donald’s overcoat and those big spectacles. Just see how funny she looks! and she’ll put that fur cap on her head, and she’ll come in and feel your pulse, and say, ‘Very sick child, marm.’ And then, she will only just pretend to give you some pills.”