Again the typical shrug. “Stefano no can work; he much-a seeck! Me come along. Maria, Stefano, dey tell-a me, ‘You stay mak-a de mon. Stefano get-a well, you can-a go!’ So me stay, two week, t’ree week, maybe!”
Norwood thought quickly in silence for a moment; then he asked the man, “Do you know where Squire Norwood lives?”
The man nodded vigorously: “Big-a house, white house; over dere—two, t’ree mile.”
“Can you show us the way?”
“Si!”
“Then come on! We will give you a lift and a place to sleep in.”
He led his wife and the child, now sleeping, as many centuries before another had led a woman and a sleeping babe; the beauty and wonder and mystery of it was not changed, not lessened because he led them through the snow on a modern dispeller of distance, instead of through burning wastes on a patient beast. She had taken the child from a manger on this Christmas eve; and it seemed a very gift of God.
The distance to Squire Norwood’s house was only a matter of a few miles; yet it must have been an hour later when the two old people stood framed in the lamp-lighted door, hurriedly opened in response to the call of the motor’s horn.
“What’s this? what’s this?” his father’s hearty voice called out. “Thought ye were coming by train, and mother just broke down and cried when I come back without ye.”
Bareheaded, the snow no whiter than his hair, he stepped out toward the dark, big shape of the car, which loomed enormous through the falling snow; then he turned to stare after the shape which moved so swiftly past him and up to the shelter of the old wife’s arms. Doubtless there were hurried words, questions, answers; but the fact of the mere existence of the baby seemed to be enough for the two women—one so lately new to grief, the other so nearly beyond it for all time. They stopped, then passed within; the lighted doorway was empty.