"Mithuth Limp," said Pattie, looking that lady straight in the eye, "I'll give you twenty-five dollarth for thith here baby. By George, I will!"
The astonished mother jumped out of her chair and her lassitude at the same instant.
"Not another thent!" Pattie craftily declared. "Here—take your baby."
Mrs. Limp did not quite take the baby. That would be but a pale indication of the speed, directness and outraged determination with which she acted. She snatched the baby away, with the precision of a brisk woodpecker after an escaping worm; and she hugged it until it howled for mercy—and she hushed it—and she crooned endearment—and she kissed the baby with such fervour and persistency that she saved its puckered face a washing. And then she turned—in a rage of indignation—in a storm of scorn—in a whirlwind of execration—upon poor little Pattie Batch. But Pattie Batch was gone. Discreet little Pattie Batch didn't need to be told! Her little feet were already pattering over the trail to Swamp's End; and she was crying as she ran.
But Pattie Batch's wish for a baby went back to the very beginnings of things. Ask Gingerbread Jenkins. Gingerbread Jenkins knows. It was Gingerbread Jenkins who had found her, long ago—Pattie was little more than a baby herself, then—on the Bottle River Trail; and to Gingerbread Jenkins' astonishment the child was lugging a gun into the woods.
"Where you goin'?" says Gingerbread Jenkins.
"Gunnin'."
"Gunnin', eh? What for?"
"Jutht gunnin'."