“Give me that baby!” she demanded.
“But, miss, that water’s boiling!” he gasped.
“You’re not going to put my baby in that?” The woman came quickly from her apathy of dismay and sprang forward, while Jim, too, advanced, his anxiety for another reason.
124“Lou! You’ll blister yourself horribly─”
“Let me alone, all of you!” Lou turned upon them even as she stripped the wrappings from the child. “Haven’t I done this a hundred times? He ain’t even goin’ to feel the heat of the mustard, he’s so far gone! I guess I know what I’m doin’!”
The woman buried her face in her hands with a sob, and even Jim turned away his eyes, but no one thought to interfere further with the assured little nurse. There was a splash of water, a little gasp from Lou, and then after a period which seemed interminable her matter-of-fact voice remarked:
“He’s comin’ round.”
The tiny body was scarcely tinged with pink, but it had lost its dreadful rigidity, and a faint cry came from it as Lou wrapped it in a shawl and laid it in its mother’s arms.
“He’ll do now, anyway till that doctor comes.”
Amid the rejoicing of the parents Jim advanced to Lou and demanded: