“Oh, Mamsie!” exclaimed Polly, turning quite pale, while Phronsie threw herself down by the side of the tub, the tears raining down her cheeks. “Oh, take her out, Mamsie, do!” she implored.
“It has to be done,” said Mrs. Pepper, her lips firmly set together, while she soaped the baby, here and there, and sent gentle little splashes of water over its poor little body. “Phronsie, we’ve forgotten a wash-rag; don’t you want to get it for Mother?”
When Phronsie saw there was anything to be done, she stopped crying and hopped to her feet, and presently back she came with the wash-rag. But then she commenced to cry and to plead again, “Oh, do take her out, Mamsie.”
“I can’t until she has had a good bath,” said Mother Pepper; “and you don’t know how good she is going to feel, Phronsie, when it’s all done,” she added cheerily.
“Is she?” cried Phronsie, through her tears.
“Yes, indeed!” said Mrs. Pepper, giving soft dabs with the wash-rag here and there. “Now, baby, you begin to look better already.” And whether it was what the Granniss baby thought herself, or whether she liked the gentle touch and kind face above her and the feel of the water, no one will ever know. Certain it is, her screams died down to a low whimpering.
“She’s better, isn’t she?” whispered Polly, who had hardly dared to breathe, and leaning over with glad brown eyes.
“Decidedly,” said Mrs. Pepper, lifting baby out to her lap, on which Polly had spread the towel. “Now, then, I must get her as dry as a piece of toast.”
“Is she going to be as dry as a piece of toast?” said Phronsie, wiping off her own tears on her pinafore, and crowding up as closely as possible to her mother’s lap.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Pepper, folding the little creature in the big towel, and rubbing her gently; “just about as dry, and she likes it; now see.”