Chapter III
THE CHANGELING
He arrived in the arms of his mother, the mulatto nurse having in some inexplicable and inconsiderate fashion acquired measles on the ship coming from their small South American republic. Francisco Enrique Manuel Machado y Rodriguez—Pancho, for short—and his mother were allowed to disembark only because of his appalling lack of health and her promise to take harborage in a hospital instead of a hotel.
Having heard of the sanitarium from her sister-in-law’s brother’s wife’s aunt, who had been there herself, and having traveled already over a thousand miles, the additional hundred or so seemed too trivial to bother about. So the señora kept her promise to the officials by buying her ticket thitherward, and Flanders, the bus-driver, arrived just in time to see three porters unload them and their luggage on the small station platform. The señora was weeping bitterly, the powder spattered and smeared all over her pretty, shallow little face; Pancho was clawing and scratching the air, while he shrieked at the top of his lungs—the only part of him that gave any evidence of strength.
Having disposed of the luggage, Flanders hurried back to the assistance of the señora, whereupon the brown atom clawed him instead of the air and fortissimoed his shrieking. Flanders promptly returned him to his mother, backing away to the bus and muttering something about “letting wildcat’s cubs be.”
“Wil’cat?” repeated the señora through her sobs. “I don’t know what ees wil’cat. I theenk eet ees one leetle deevil. Tsa, Panchito! Ciera la boca.” And she shook him.
During the drive to the sanitarium Flanders cast periodic glances within. Each time he looked the atom appeared to be shrieking louder, while his mother was shaking harder and longer. By the time they had reached their destination the breath had been shaken quite out of him. He lay back panting in his mother’s arms, with only strength enough for a feeble and occasional snarl. His bonnet of lace and cerise-pink ribbon had come untied and had slipped from his head, disclosing a mass of black hair curled by nature and matted by neglect. It gave the last uncanny touch to the brown atom’s appearance and caused Hennessy, who was sweeping the crossing, to drop his broom and stare agape at the new arrivals.
“Faith, is it one o’ them Brazilian monkeys?” he whispered, pulling Flanders by the sleeve. “I’ve heard the women are makin’ pets o’ them, although I never heard they were after fixin’ them up wi’ lace an’ ribbons like that.”
“It’s a kid.” Flanders stated the fact without any degree of positiveness as he rubbed three fingers cautiously down his cheek. He was feeling for scars. “Guess it’s a kid all right, but it scratches like a cat, gosh durn it!”