When little Al was a month old, shortly after midnight on the thirteenth of November—she will never forget the day—Georgia awoke suddenly as if a pistol had been shot off by her ear. The baby was wailing in a feeble little singsong. She looked at the clock. It wanted half an hour to his feeding time.
She walked slowly up and down the room, whispering to her son. Sometimes she stopped at the open window to look out into the cool pleasant night, but nothing she knew how to do made any difference. He kept steadily on with his heart-breaking little singsong wail.
At one precisely, before the single stroke of the small clock had stopped ringing through the room, she gave him breast. He took a little, then gasped and choked and "spit it up" again. She waited ten minutes as she had been instructed, then gave him a very little—not more than three or four swallows. He rejected it. After twenty minutes she tried again. The warm, white life-giving fluid ran over his lips and chin, and trickled down his neck, wetting the neckband and sleeve of his thin woolen garment. But he kept a little down she thought. And then after awhile a little more. She did not wish him to be as far from her as his crib, so he dozed off in the crook of her elbow, while she took short naps a few minutes at a time until dawn.
At five she took in Mr. Kane's coffee. This duty now accrued to her, because the doctor had warned Mrs. Talbot not to overdo.
When Georgia returned with her empty tray she dropped into a chair for just a moment's rest. An hour later when she awoke she found little Al lying rigid on the bed, his small fists clenched, his eyes rolled up until only the whites could be seen through his half-closed lids, his under lip sucked in between his gums. She was not sure that he breathed.
Hastily she ran to the bathroom and turned the hot water tap on full. Hastily she ran back, and took the child in her arms. She knocked at the door of big Al's room.
"Al," she cried, "Al, Al, Al—wake up."
"What—eh, oh, what?" came a sleepy voice.
"Telephone the doctor, quick, quick, quick, the baby is—Oh, hurry, Al."
She ran to the bathroom and put her hand in the running stream from the faucet. Tepid, only tepid. Would it never get warm? If God ever wanted anything more from her—in the way of belief or devotion—let Him make this water hot, now, on the instant.