“Whose kids?” she demanded, the familiar smile creeping back into her eyes, and her lips pursing dryly. “Yours?”
“Oh, no,” denied the man quickly. “Not mine. It’s Zip’s. Y’see, since his wife’s lit out he’s kind o’ left with ’em. An’ he’s that fool-headed he don’t know how to raise ’em proper. So I guessed I’d help him. Now, if you put me wise––”
“You help raise Zip’s kids? Gee!” The girl slid off the table and stood eyeing him, her woman’s humor tickled to the limit.
But Toby did not realize it. He was in deadly earnest now.
“Yes,” he said simply. Then, with a gleam of intelligence, “How’d you raise ’em?”
The girl was suddenly stirred to a feeling of good-humored malice.
“How’d I raise ’em? Why, it ain’t jest easy.”
“It sure ain’t,” agreed Toby heartily. “Now, how’d you feed ’em?”
Birdie became judicially wise.
“Well,” she began, “you can’t jest feed ’em same as ord’nary folks. They need speshul food. You’ll need to give ’em boiled milk plain or with pap, you kin git fancy crackers an’ soak ’em. Then ther’s beef-tea. Not jest ord’nary beef-tea. You want to take a boilin’ o’ bones, an’ boil for three hours, an’ then skim well. After that you might let it cool some, an’ then you add flavorin’. Not too much, an’ not too little, jest so’s to make it elegant tastin’. Then you cook toasties to go with it, or give ’em crackers. Serve it to ’em hot, an’ jest set around blowin’ it so it don’t scald their little stummicks. Got that? You can give ’em eggs, but not too much meat. Meat well done an’ cut up wi’ vegetables an’ gravy, an’ make ’em eat it with a spoon. Knives is apt to cut ’em. Eggs light boiled, an’ don’t let ’em rub the yolk in their hair, nor slop gravy over their bow-ties. Candy, some, but it ain’t good for their teeth, which needs seein’ to by a dentist, anyway. Say, if they’re cuttin’ teeth you ken let ’em chew the beef bones, it helps ’em thro’. Fancy canned truck ain’t good ’less it’s baked beans, though I ’lows beans cooked reg’lar is best. You soak ’em twenty-four hours, an’ boil ’em soft, an’ see the water don’t boil away. Fruit is good if they ain’t subjec’ to colic, which needs poultices o’ linseed, an’ truck like that. Don’t let ’em eat till they’re blown up like frogs, an’––you got all that?”