“I swan! Where’d ye get that baby?” the old man asked of his son.
Norwood explained; his father was quick with self-reproach that such a tragedy had transpired so near, while he, the friendly “Squire” of the countryside, should have been all unaware of it.
“Summer-time I might have driven home that way; mother and me often stopped to see how Stefano was coming along. But winters we always use the state road. It’s longer, but better going. Sho! Mother will feel dreadful bad. She got to be real fond of Mareea, what with the baby coming, and after. Mareea used to tell as how they hadn’t any folks, poor young things!”
“Are you sure of that?” asked Norwood, sharply. “Could not Christine—could we have the baby?”
His father’s eyes held a sharp question, then became quickly misty. “I am sure; but as selectman I can make it sure for ye beyond question.”
The men’s hands clasped; the squire coughed, and Norwood’s doctor-sense was aroused.
“Why, father, you are standing here without your hat! You go right in, and I’ll put the car in the barn. I guess we can give this man shelter over Christmas, can’t we?”
It was, perhaps, some three hours later, after his mother had worn out all her persuasion in trying to coax them to eat to four times their capacity; and after they had exhausted every detail of talk about the fire and the tragedy; and after they had disposed the beribboned parcels to be opened in the morning; and after Norwood had lifted his mother fairly off the floor in his good-night “bear hug”—it was after all of this that Norwood followed Christine up to the big south room, with its white-hung four-poster, and found her kneeling over the old mahogany cradle which had been his own. The old clock in the hall below struck twelve.
Christine arose, and laid her cheek against her husband’s arm. “It is Christmas,” she said; and the baby, sleeping, smiled.