“No, but you can take Edith’s bicycle, and go and get back in no time.”
“Oh, but it is hot!” ejaculated Nathalie, some fifteen minutes later, as with reddened, perspiring face she slowed up her wheel, and spying a mossy bank overlooking a brook meandering beneath a group of willows, jumped to the ground. As she was standing her wheel against a tree, a woman with a reddish handkerchief tied over her head came up the bank. She started when she saw Nathalie, but instantly averting her eyes hurried on down the road in the direction of the farm-house where Nathalie was to get the milk.
The girl had thrown herself on the grassy slope and was fanning vigorously with her hat, when her eyes were arrested by something white lying under an overhanging bush near the brook. Perhaps she would not have stared so intently if she had not thought that she saw it move. Just at that moment a low wailing cry came to her ears.
Assured beyond doubt that the cry came from the bundle, she hurried down the slope, and a moment later was bending over a baby, who, on seeing the wondering face, looked up with innocent appeal in its wide blue eyes.
“Why, you dear,” cooed the girl, “how did you come here?” She looked up expecting to see some one to whom the baby belonged, but as there was no one in sight and she saw the little lip quiver pathetically, she gathered it up in her arms and chucking the dimpled chin began to jabber to it in baby language.
“Whom do you belong to, baby?” she questioned aloud, silently wondering if that tramp woman who had come up the bank could have been its mother. But that could hardly be, she pondered, for she looked like an Italian, while the baby was fair with tiny wisps of golden hair straying from beneath its neat white cap.
Reminded finally that the camp’s need of milk was urgent, she laid the baby down and ran along the bank first in one direction, and then the other, shouting and calling until her voice was hoarse. O dear, what should she do? She could not leave that dear thing there alone! Ah, she would take it with her to the farm-house, perhaps Mrs. Hansen might know something about it.
Carrying her find with one arm and trundling her wheel with the other hand, she arrived in a short space at her destination. But alas, she met with no satisfaction. Mrs. Hansen declared that in all probability the woman was a gypsy, as there was a settlement of them some miles beyond the town and that she had purposely deserted the baby. She also informed the girl in a most emphatic manner that she could not leave the child there as she had enough of her own to look after.
“But this is a white baby,” persisted Nathalie, “see, it is very fair!” showing the little puckered face, for by this time it had begun to whimper quite loudly.
“Poor waif!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife, “it is hungry!” Hastily getting a cup of milk she put it to the mouth of the little one, whose fingers closed on it tightly as it drank greedily.