NANNETTE'S LIVE BABY.
A good many years ago, in the city of Philadelphia, lived a little girl, named Nannette.
One summer afternoon her mother went to pay a short visit to her aunt, who lived near by, and gave her little girl permission to amuse herself on the front door-steps until her return. So Nannette, in a clean pink frock and white apron, playing and chatting with her big, wax "Didy," which was her doll's name, formed a pretty picture to the passers-by, some of whom walked slowly, in order to hear the child's talk to her doll.
"You'se a big, old girl," she went on, smoothing out Didy's petticoats, "and I've had you for ever and ever, and I'se mos' six. But you grow no bigger. You never, never cry, you don't. You'se a stupid old thing, and I'm tired of you, I am! I b'leve you'se only a make b'leve baby, and I want a real, live baby,
I do—a baby that will cry! Now don't you see," and she gave the doll's head a whack—"that you don't cry? If anybody should hit me so, I'd squeam m-u-r-d-e-r, I would! And then the p'lissman would come, and there would be an awful time. There, now sit up, can't you? Your back is like a broken stick. Oh, hum, I'm tired of you, Didy."
Leaving the doll leaning in a one-sided way against the door, Nannette posed her dimpled chin in her hands, and sat quietly looking into the street. Presently a woman came along with a bundle in her arms, and seeing Nannette and "Didy" in the doorway, went up the steps and asked the little girl if she would not like to have a real little live baby.
"One that will cry?" eagerly asked Nannette.
"Yes, one that will cry, and laugh, too, after a bit," answered the woman, all the time looking keenly about her; and then in a hushed voice she asked the child if her mother was at home.
"No—she's gone to see my auntie, shall I call her?" replied Nannette, jumping to her feet, and clapping her hands, from a feeling as if in some way she was to have her long-wished-for live baby.
"No; don't call her; and if you want a baby that will cry, you must be very quiet, and listen to me.