“Mebbe they will. Seems to reason they must have some kin—even if they ain’t nigh.”
Then the silence reigned again and the woman at the bed’s head gave her undivided attention to the slow, regular motion of her palm-leaf fan.
In the room beyond a small fire burned in spite of the warmth of the day, and divers small tin cups and pipkins simmered before and upon the cinders of it, Aunt Mornin varying her other duties by moving them a shade nearer to the heat or farther from it, and stirring and tasting at intervals.
Upon a low rocking-chair before the hearth sat the wife of the family man before referred to. She was a tall, angular creature, the mother of fifteen, comprising in their number three sets of twins. She held her snuff-stick between her teeth and the child on her lap, with an easy professional air.
“I hain’t never had to raise none o’ mine by hand since Martin Luther,” she remarked. “I’ve been mighty glad on it, for he was a sight o’ trouble. Kinder colicky and weakly. Never done no good till we got him off the bottle. He’d one cow’s milk, too, all the time. I was powerful partickerler ’bout that. I’d never have raised him if I hadn’t bin. ‘N’ to this day Martin Luther hain’t what ’Poleon and Orlando is.”
“Dis yere chile ain’t gwine to be no trouble to nobody,” put in Aunt Mornin. “She’s a powerful good chile to begin with, ‘n’ she’s a chile that’s gwine to thrive. She hain’t done no cryin’ uv no consequence yit, ‘n’ whar a chile starts out dat dar way it speaks well for her. If Mornin had de raisin’ o’ dat chile, dar wouldn’t be no trouble ’t all. Bile der milk well ‘n’ d’lute down right, ‘n’ a chile like dat ain’t gwine to have no colick. My young Mistis Mars D’Willerby bought me from, I’ve raised three o’ hern, an’ I’m used to bilin’ it right and d’lutin’ it down right. Dar’s a heap in de d’lutin’. Dis yere bottle’s ready now, Mis’ Doty, ef ye want it.”
“It’s the very bottle I raised Martin Luther on,” said Mrs. Doty. “It brings back ole times to see it. She takes it purty well, don’t she? Massy sakes! How f’erce she looks for sich a little thing!”
Later in the day there arose the question of how she should be disposed of for the night, and it was in the midst of this discussion that Tom De Willoughby entered.
“Thar ain’t but one room; I s’pose he’ll sleep in that,” said Mrs. Doty, “‘n’ the Lord knows he don’t look the kind o’ critter to know what to do with a chile. We hain’t none o’ us seen him since this mornin’. I guess he’s kinder wanderin’ round. Does any of you know whar he is? We might ax what he ’lows to do.”
Tom bent down over the child as it lay in the woman’s lap. No one could see his face.