Mabella looked at the little figure standing tottering upon its uncertain legs; the little dress was so grotesquely ill-made; the sleeves were little square sacks; the skirt was as wide at the neck as at the hem. She thought of her well-clad Dorothy and her heart went out to the desolate pair.
The mother, tired of Vashti’s cold, condemnatory scrutiny, began to shift uneasily from one foot to the other.
“What’s your baby’s name?” asked Mabella, her sympathies urging her to take precedence of the preacher’s wife.
“Reuben,” said Ann.
“Reuben what?” demanded Vashti in sepulchral tones.
“Jest Reuben—Reuben was my father’s name”—then with fretful irritation—“jest Reuben.”
“Is your child deformed?” asked Vashti suddenly, eyeing with disfavour the little chest and shoulders where the ill-made frock stuck out so pitifully.
“Deformed!” cried Ann, the pure mother in her aroused; “there ain’t a better-shaped baby in Dole than my Reub.”
She sat down upon the floor, and, it seemed to Mabella, with two movements, unclothed the child, and holding him out cried indignantly—
“Look at him, Missus Martin, look at him! and if you know what a baby’s like when you see one you’ll know he’s jest perfect—ain’t he, Missus Lansing? Ain’t he? You know, don’t you?”