"Nobody ain't told me nothings," Esther answered. "I don't know nothings. Only I thinks it in mine heart. And anyway, the first baby what comes here is mine. I writes on the Central Park a letter over it. It's going to be a boy mit from-gold hair."
"Well," snorted the nurse with some professional pique, "it's good you got that settled."
Late that night Esther awoke in her little outgrown crib. A familiar series of sounds had disturbed her: the arrival of the doctor. So the lady mit the from-gold hair was presumably worse. The doctor's steps mounted into the darkness and silence of the sleeping house, and the clock in Mrs. Moriarty's room struck two. Esther lay wide-eyed in the dark and waited for the sound of the doctor's return, but she heard nothing except the far-away clang and shriek of an occasional cable-car and the sound of stealthy, hurrying feet upon the sidewalk. She sat up, and in the dim reflection from the electric light on the street corner she distinguished the shapeless bulk that was her sleeping father. Jacob had only recently come in from his quest, and he slept the sleep of exhaustion.
Cold had no terrors for her; she was clad, feet and all, in an Esquimaux garment of brilliant pink flannel of Mrs. Moriarty's contriving.
And still the doctor did not come down. Esther climbed to the floor and noiselessly unlocked the door. In the hall a deadly quiet served as a background for Mr. Finkelstein's snoring. And then Esther's summons came. Shrill and clear from the darkness above dropped the cry of a new-born child. Hers! The Stork had blundered again.
"Oh, my!" wailed Esther, "ain't Storks the fools? In all my world I ain't never seen how he makes mistakes. I told him just as plain: Second Floor Front. Und extra he goes und maybe wakes up the lady mit the from-gold hair over it. She's got it hard enough 'out no babies yelling."
As Esther toiled toward the sound, she realized that yet another mistake had been made, it was 'a loud one.' Now what would her father say—and Mrs. Moriarty? But this was no time for such questioning. Her plain duty was to collect her property and prevent its disturbing the whole house.
When she reached her friend's room she found that the disturbance had taken place and was still in progress. The nurse, the doctor, and the Top Floor Front were gathered about the bed, presumably reassuring their patient, and upon a pillow thrown into a rocking-chair the Stork had left Esther's gold-haired brother.
Oh! it was easy, fatally easy, to recognize the answer to her petition! The noise subsided as Esther noiselessly pattered over to it, and from an end of its roll of flannel a bright head projected. Esther picked it up and beat a hasty retreat unobserved by the workers at the bedside. Down the dark stairs she passed with her burden, and into the drawing-room again. She snuggled down beside it in her crib and for a few ecstatic moments held it in her arms. The clock struck four, and, as Esther quivered and listened still for the descent of the doctor, the baby raised up its voice again in one prolonged and breathless yell. Jacob was beside the crib in an instant and had his daughter in his arms.
"What is it?" he questioned wildly. "Where is it? What hurt thee?" And then his heart too skipped a beat, for he found that though he had Esther in his arms he had left her voice in the crib.