The Baby crept timidly out of the wild bombardment, and sat down beside the ample figure of Aunt Sereny. His tiny hand—the fac-simile of Tim's only less skinny—grasped her dress firmly. Aunt Sereny put her hand into her pocket and drew forth unheard-of treasures of peppermints, sweet-flag root, and caraway-seeds. These the Baby gravely took and devoured.
Noon coming ever so much too soon, Aunt Sereny, amid great applause, suggested something more in the line of refreshments. She accordingly spread a white cloth over a great flat rock, and set forth a feast calculated to drive a hungry boy crazy with delight. Even the Baby fairly laughed aloud.
"I tell you, boys," said Tim, springing to his feet as he heard it, and even dropping a precious tart in his enthusiasm—"I tell you the Baby hasn't laughed like that since I can remember. Hi! ain't it jolly?"
The meal fairly over, they lay a little while on the warm dry grass enjoying the mild sunshine, Aunt Sereny knitting peacefully on. Two or three boys dozed a little, and the Baby crept up to his old place beside Aunt Sereny, and gathering up his tiny figure upon her dress, went fast asleep. She spread a light shawl over him, and drew him closer, amid affectionate and admiring glances from Tim. Tim adored anybody who was good to the Baby.
Pretty soon Farmer Hurlbut roused them up to go to the walnut-trees, and two other boys were detailed for duty in the branches, which they beat and beat again with their poles. "Shucks" were new things to them all.
"Shure enough," said Larry O'Brien, with a fine brogue, "and now I'll know what they mane whin they say I don't know shucks—but I do, though."
This caused an uproarious laugh, and Larry kept on saying witty things, to the great amusement of all. Not Sydney Smith himself was ever the source of more delight.
The train was to start at five, and it was nearly that time when the tired, sunburned, happy little crowd drew up at the railroad station. Aunt Sereny had been having a whispered consultation with Farmer Hurlbut on the way home, and when they stopped, she took Tim and the Baby aside.
"Tim," she said, "can't you leave the Baby with us a little while—to stay a week or two, you know? You tell me where to write, and I'll let your mother know how he gets along. We'll take good care of him."
Tim gazed at her with open mouth and shining eyes. "The Baby?" he gasped. "Why—mother—and—me" (slowly) "can't get along 'thout the Baby. He sleeps with me"—his lip trembling—"every night. Seems 's if I couldn't sleep nohow 'thout his little hand hold o' mine."