"Oh, Morris," Katy cried, "baby can almost walk, Marian has taken so much pains, and she can say 'papa.' Isn't she a beauty?"
Baby had turned her head by this time, her ear caught by the whistle and her eye arrested by something in Morris which fascinated her gaze. Perhaps she thought of Wilford, of whom she had been very fond, for she pushed her chair toward him and then held up her fat, creasy arms for him to take her. Morris was fond of children and took the infant at once, strained it to his bosom with a passionate caress, which seemed to have in it something of the love he bore the mother, who went off into ecstasies of joy when baby, attacking Morris' hair and patting softly his cheek, tried to kiss him as it had been taught by Marian. Never was mother prouder, happier than Katy during the first few days succeeding baby's arrival, while the family seemed to tread on air, so swiftly the time went by with that active little life in their midst, stirring them up so constantly, putting to rout all their rules of order and keeping their house in a state of delightful confusion.
It was wonderful how rapidly the child improved with so many teachers, learning to lisp its mother's name and taught by her attempting to say "Doctor." From the very first the child took to Morris, crying after him whenever he went away, and hailing his arrival with a crow of joy and an eager attempt to reach him.
"It was altogether too forward for this world," Aunt Betsy often said, shaking her head ominously, but not really meaning what she predicted, even when for a few days it did not seem as bright as usual, but lay quietly in Katy's lap, a blue look about the mouth and a flush upon its cheeks, which neither Morris nor Marian liked.
More accustomed to children than the other members of the family, they both watched it closely, Morris coming over twice one day, and the last time he came regarding Katy with a look as if he would fain ward off from her some evil-which he feared.
"What is it, Morris?" she asked. "Is baby going to be very sick?" and a great crushing fear came upon her as she waited for his answer.
"I hope not," he said; "I cannot tell as yet; the symptoms are like cholera infantum, of which I have several cases, but if taken in time I apprehend no danger."
There was a low shriek and baby opened its heavy lids and moaned, while Helen came at once to Katy, holding her hand upon her heart as if the pain had entered there. To Marian it was no news, for ever since the early morning she had suspected the nature of the disease stealing over the little child, so suddenly stricken down, and looking by the lamplight so pale and sick. All night the light burned in the farmhouse, where there were anxious, troubled faces, Katy bending constantly over her darling, and even amid her terrible anxiety dreading Wilford's displeasure when he should hear what she had done and its possible result. She did not believe as yet that her child would die; but she suffered acutely, watching for the early dawn when Morris had said he would be there, and when at last he came, begging of him to stay, to leave his other patients and care only for baby.
"Would that be right?" Morris asked, and Katy blushed for her selfishness when she heard how many were sick and dying around them. "I will spend every leisure moment here," he said, leaving his directions with Marian and then hurrying away without a word of hope for the child, growing worse so fast that when the night shut down again it lay upon a pillow, its blue eyes closed and its head thrown back, while its sad moanings could only be hushed by carrying it in one's arms about the room, a task which Katy could not do.
She had tried it once, refusing all their offers with the reply: "Baby is mine and shall I not carry her?"