For a moment Rosie had nothing to say. Then she gasped: "Why, Jarge, what do you mean?"
"And you're to start tomorrow, Rosie, on the eleven o'clock train, and dad'll be at the station to meet you. You'll know him 'cause he looks just like the farmers in the Sunday papers, with a big straw hat and thin whiskers. And he drives an old white horse—Billy's his name."
"Mercy on us, Jarge Riley, how you talk!" Mrs. O'Brien leaned forward in excitement. "What's this ye're sayin'?"
George laughed and started over again. "You see, Mis' O'Brien, Rosie and me was talking the other day about babies and the country, and then Geraldine began crying and I thought to myself, 'Well, I'll just write to mother and see.' I wrote that morning, and here's the answer. The postman gave it to me as I was starting out this afternoon."
"That's it, is it?" Mrs. O'Brien seemed to understand perfectly. To Rosie, however, the news still sounded too good to be true.
"Jarge, do you mean your mother has invited Geraldine and me out to the country for a couple o' weeks?"
"Sure, that's what I mean. And you're to start tomorrow——"
"Oh, Jarge, and can Geraldine sleep on the upstairs porch where the breeze always blows and they's no mosquitoes or flies?"
"O' course she can, and you can, too!"
Rosie was laughing and crying together. "Do you hear that, Ma? She's going to have a chance to sleep and get back her strength and then she'll be able to pull over this horrible teething time, and then she won't—she won't have to die!"