“Of course not,” said I. “Now that I see how it's done, I'm going to do it myself. Jonas will mix his feed and I will give it to him. He looks sleepy now. Shall I take him upstairs and lay him on our bed?”
“No, indeed,” cried Euphemia. “You can put him on a quilt on the floor, until after luncheon, and then you must take him home.”
I laid the young Milesian on the folded quilt which Euphemia prepared for him, where he turned up his little pug nose to the ceiling and went contentedly to sleep.
That afternoon I nailed four legs on a small packing-box and made a bedstead for him. This, with a pillow in the bottom of it, was very comfortable, and instead of taking him home, I borrowed, in the evening, some baby night-clothes from Pomona, and set about preparing Pat for the night.
This Euphemia would not allow, but silently taking him from me, she put him to bed.
“To-morrow,” she said, “you must positively take him away. I wont stand it. And in our room, too.”
“I didn't talk in that way about the baby you adopted,” I said.
To this she made no answer, but went away to attend, as usual, to Pomona's baby, while its mother washed the dishes.
That night little Pat woke up, several times, and made things unpleasant by his wails. On the first two occasions, I got up and walked him about, singing impromptu lines to the tune of “weak and wounded,” but the third time, Euphemia herself arose, and declaring that that doleful tune was a great deal worse than the baby's crying, silenced him herself, and arranging his couch more comfortably, he troubled us no more.
In the morning, when I beheld the little pad of orange fur in the box, my heart almost misgave me, but as the day wore on, my courage rose again, and I gave myself up, almost entirely, to my new charge, composing a vast deal of blank verse, while walking him up and down the house.