“I can’t see anything!” she exclaimed. “The place seems quite empty.”
“Eh, dear!” said Maggie: “you don’t know how to search. Take the baby, and let me.”
She walked across the cabin, thrust her hand into some straw which was pressed against the rafters, pulled out an old tin can and opened it.
“Eh, what’s this?” she exclaimed. “Sperits? Now we’ll do. Give me the baby back again, Miss Flower, and fetch a cup, ef you please.”
Flower did so.
“Put some hot water into it. Why, you ain’t very handy! Miss Polly’s worth a dozen of you! Now pour in a little of the sperit from the tin can—not too much. Let me taste it. That will do. Now, baby—now, Miss Polly’s darling baby!—I’ll wet your lips with this, and you’ll have your bath, and you’ll do fine!”
The mixture was rubbed on the blue lips of the infant, and Maggie even managed to get her to swallow a few drops. Then, the bath being prepared by Flower, under a shower of scathing ridicule from Maggie, who had very small respect, in any sense of the word, for her assistant, the baby was put into it, thoroughly warmed, rubbed up, and comforted, and then, with the white fleecy shawl wrapped well around her, she fell asleep in Maggie’s arms.
“She’ll do for the present,” said the kitchen-maid, leaning back and mopping a little moisture from her own brow. “She’ll do for a time, but she won’t do for long, for she’ll want milk and all kinds of comforts. And I tell you what it is, Miss Flower, that my master and Miss Polly can’t be kept a-fretting for this child until the morning. Some one must go at once, and tell ’em where she is, and put ’em out of their misery, and the thing is this: is it you, or is it me, that’s to do the job?”
“But,” said Flower—she had scarcely spoken at all until now—“cannot we both go? Cannot we both walk home, and take the baby with us?”
“No, Miss, not by no means. Not a breath of night air must touch the cheeks of this blessed lamb. Either you or me, Miss Flower, must walk back to Sleepy Hollow, and tell ’em about the baby, and bring back Nurse, and what’s wanted for the child. Will you hold her, Miss? and shall I trot off at once?—for there ain’t a minute to be lost.”