“All right. We’ll fix it somehow,” Anna assured her, and asked Alice if she wished her to go in with her.
“O Anna, if you would!” cried Alice, throwing her arm about her and embracing her warmly.
Thereafter for many days Anna Miller had an additional burden upon her shoulders—the burden of Alice Lorraine’s mystery. The change in Alice which was inexplicable to Anna but which seemed painfully obvious, she tried to keep from the knowledge of others as she endeavored to cover up her secret visits to the cottage she and her mother had occupied. She did this cheerfully and willingly, but her heart was heavy. For Alice did not seem happy at all. She seemed nervous and apprehensive, so that Anna feared the secret she was helping her to conceal was anything but a pleasant one.
But for this, Anna would have been serene. For Mrs. Langley’s unexpected behaviour in respect to the baby troubled her less and less as the days passed. She still expected to hand the child over to the household at the parsonage on some fine day, but she was ready to wait. Indeed, but for the fact that the care of little Joe during school hours fell upon her mother, she would have been glad to wait indefinitely.
And as it was, the girl had never been so happy with anyone or anything as she was with this forlorn baby orphan. No one shared her enthusiasm in any considerable measure. Alice Lorraine went into ecstasies over little Joe by fits and starts and then forgot all about him. Mrs. Lorraine was becoming attached to him, and Anna’s father and the boys took kindly to him. But Mrs. Miller disapproved thoroughly of the whole affair,—the only instance of her disapproval Anna had known since her return home. And she remained unresigned to her part of minding little Joe when Anna was at school, though he slept a good part of the time and for the rest was, she had to own, as little trouble as a child could be. She even confessed, when pressed, that he was hardly more bother than a kitten.
This was not exaggeration. Joe, Junior, occasioned little trouble. On the other hand, he paid as little in the coin of babyhood for such trouble as he gave as could any human being at his interesting age. Not only was he not irresistible but he was quite negligible, unless, indeed, he aroused vague irritation in the mind of the beholder because of his utter want of attractiveness. He was thin and scrawny and sallow; his head was too big for his emaciated little body, and his pale-coloured eyes too big for his mite of an old man’s face. His feet and hands were ugly claws, his legs mere sticks—one would as quickly have looked for dimples in the living skeleton of the circus. He had a mere wisp of tow-coloured hair and never showed the teeth he possessed. He never smiled, never, indeed, looked other than woe-begone. Though he never cried out and seldom whined or whimpered, he always seemed to want sadly something that was never by any chance what was proffered him.
But he clung to Anna, and though he was never other than mournful even with her, he was passively content. And Anna adored him. It was no task for her to hurry home from school to relieve her mother—she could scarcely wait to get at the baby after any absence. He slept in an old cradle (salvaged from Miss Penny’s garret) by the side of her bed, and the girl was ready to get up at any hour of the night for milk or water, and sang to him by the hour in her sweet young voice. She spent nearly all the money she had saved in a year in the purchase of a wardrobe for the baby, who was the best-dressed child of his age, or perhaps of any age, in the two villages. She took pride and pleasure in ironing the frills and laces of his little frocks and petticoats and in keeping him immaculately tidy,—the latter being easy, as the baby never played, and if he was placed on the floor never moved from the spot. She brushed the scanty hair on top of his head, longing for the time when there should be enough to make a curl.
But one day as she did this, it came to the girl that when that time should come, in all likelihood Joe, Junior, wouldn’t be with her. Her heart sank. And it was borne in upon her that if she was to give the baby away, it must happen very soon. A little later, and it would be utterly impossible. Even now, she wouldn’t have been able even to contemplate the idea if it had been anyone but Mr. Langley who was to benefit thereby.
Mr. Langley had been in to see little Joe and had taken to him more warmly than anyone else had done, unless one counted Alice in one mood. He had held the baby all the while he stayed and hadn’t seemed to know how to get away. He hadn’t seemed to feel any want in him; he had admired him apparently as much as Anna herself. He needed him more than she did, of course, but O, he didn’t want him more!
He didn’t know that he wanted him, for he did not dream that there was any chance of having him. Mrs. Langley kept it dark—trust her!—and Anna didn’t feel like saying anything until she was ready to receive the child. Miss Penny was the only other person who knew, and she, though she couldn’t keep a secret of her own, was quite safe with that of another. But he should know as soon as it was prudent, and that, Anna decided, must be very soon. She said to herself it was up to her to make what Caesar calls a forced march.