“I think I will let you. Keep your wits about you, Cricket, and don’t go wandering off anywhere. And I’ll send a little bundle of things down to Mosina’s mother. By the way, tell her to come up on Saturday, and I’ll have a big bundle ready for her. You can carry a few cookies down in a little box, couldn’t you, Hilda, if Cricket carries the parcel?”
The children set off on their expedition, in great glee, about ten o’clock. To be sure, Cricket had never been there alone before, but the way was very direct and simple, and the neighbourhood where Mosina’s mother lived, though poor, was perfectly respectable. Mrs. Ward had fulfilled her promise to little Mrs. Brummagen—had given her work, and told her friends about her, and moreover, had been to see her, herself, several times. The children still called the baby “Mosina,” and the child had already learned to use the name herself. As the children walked along, Cricket rehearsed, for the third or fourth time, the story of the finding and the temporary adoption of Mosina.
“She’s awfully cunning, but I’m glad we didn’t adopt her,” concluded Cricket. “She would have been a lot of work. Children always are, I guess. I’ve thought, ever since that night, that I wonder how mothers stand it.”
“Oh, mothers are made so!” said Hilda, comfortably.
“I wonder if that makes it really any easier for them,” meditated Cricket, thoughtfully. “Mamma says that I had colic just steadily till I was about six months old, and cried all the time, and would scarcely stay with the nurse at all. Mamma was up with me most every night. Think of it! And one night just used me up.”
“Mothers don’t mind,” repeated Hilda. “Mamma just loves to do things for me, so I always let her,” she added, superbly.
Cricket knit her brows a little, but as they were already at Mosina’s home, she put the question away, to think over at her leisure.
Mosina and her mother were delighted to see their visitors. Mrs. Brummagen was hard at work, washing, and Mosina was tied to the door-knob by a string. This, at first sight, did not seem a necessary precaution, for she was sitting perfectly still, upon the floor, staring into space, when the girls entered. This one little room was the whole of Mrs. Brummagen’s residence. Here she slept and washed clothes and did her bit of cooking, but it was all clean and tidy as Dutch neatness could make it. The girls delivered the box of cookies and the other things, and gave Mrs. Ward’s message.
Hilda stared about her. She had never, before, been in the home of the very poor.
“Why, that’s a bed! Does she sleep in the kitchen?” she whispered to Cricket, as Mrs. Brummagen went back to her washing, and Cricket lifted Mosina in her arms.