"There's something about little babies that makes me happy all over and makes me want to cry too," she said to one of the nurses, holding to her bosom a little pink mummy-like bundle, a recent addition to the home. "I hope some nice kind lady is going to want this little baby child and she will grow up and never know she's 'dopted. Being 'dopted isn't so bad if you don't ever know it. Peter don't want ever to be 'dopted because he thinks somebody like Cousin Dink might get him. I hope they will just let me go on living here and by and by I can be a real sure-enough nurse and wash all the little babies and Peter can grow up and be a policeman or something. Peter used to be afraid of policemen but ever since Miss Josie told him what nice men they were and one time introduced him to a big cop on the corner and Peter shook hands with him, he's been thinking policemen are the finest things going and he wants to be one worse than anything. Peter could be a big policeman and could bring all the little homeless babies here and I could wash them clean and curl their hair and get them ready to be 'dopted."
One day shortly after they had moved to the Hathaway house a ringing of the front door bell heralded the advent of callers. Since callers often meant would-be adopters of infants it was natural for manager and nurses to wish to make as good a showing as possible. A lady and a gentleman were ushered into the parlor. Dr. Weston congratulated himself that everything was in such good order and that he could testify to the good health and disposition of so many of his charges.
"I am thinking of adopting a little boy," spoke the lady, an exceedingly prim little person with a determined chin. "My husband wants a boy, although I should really prefer a girl."
The husband, a sad-eyed man with a humorous twitch to his mouth, looked a bit astonished at this statement. He had been laboring under the idea that it was just the other way around—that he preferred a girl and his wife a boy—but it made very little difference. She was going to have what she wanted, even to the extent of making him pretend he wanted what she wanted.
"An infant, I presume, madam?" said Dr. Weston.
"No, not at all! I'd prefer a little boy who has cut his teeth and can talk. Of course I'd like him to have curls, and to come from a nice family, and to be perfectly sound and healthy, and to have no bad habits—such as eating plastering or having adenoids. I want a bright, attractive child with a sweet disposition so that I can raise him up for the ministry."
"Um-hum!" mused Dr. Weston. "I'll see what we have to offer in the way of angels. There are some children playing in the yard now, madam. Perhaps you and your husband would like to go have a look at them. The infants are on the southern porch in their cribs but the little ones who can toddle we keep out in the yard all we can."
The garden of the old Hathaway house again was the background for a picturesque scene. In the same spot where Hortense Markle had so cleverly staged Mary Louise's out door wedding not so many months before, ten little children from two years up to six were playing happily in a sand pile, recently donated to the home by Mrs. Peter Conant with shovels and buckets enough to go around and a few to spare for possible additions.
Peter Waller was evidently the chief engineer of the sand pile and the other children looked to him for inspiration, whether it were turning out whole spice cakes by packing down the sand in buckets and adroitly inverting them or excavating marvelous tunnels that one could actually see through.
"Now this is a tunnel," he said. "I know 'cause I've been through a whole lot of tunnels. Haven't I Polly?" calling to his sister who was patiently nursing a child with a bumped knee on a bench near by.