But Cely looked at Maumer distrustfully.
“Yo’ sho’ dar hain’t nuffin de matter wid my baby, Judy?” Cely asked, wistfully, as she put her forefinger into the brown, waxen fist that belonged to the tiny bundle Maumer held.
“Naw, gal, naw!” laughed Judy, putting number fifteen, who began to yell vigorously, back into its cradle. “Hain’t nuffin de matter wid him, ’cep’in’ he so mighty little; fur yo’ sho’ does look lack er gal er-totin’ er doll. Dar hain’t nuffin de matter wid him; he des sleepy.”
“Do er baby allus breave dat way?” Cely was twisting her apron nervously. “Does dey allus ’beat, beat,’ in de top er de head an’ in de chist dat er way? Tek off his clo’es an’ look, Judy.”
Maumer frowned and turned on her heel when Judy good-naturedly took the little bundle from her arms and stripped the blue checked slip from Cely’s latest doll.
“Hain’t he putty ’dout any clo’es?” cried Cely, beguiled from her fear by her admiration of the brown, bow-legged Cupid squirming on Judy’s knee.
“Cely proud fitten ter bus’; she des wanter show her baby off,” said the mother of the ugliest baby in the Nursery.
“Hain’t nuffin wrong wid him, Cely, ’cep’in’ he little, an’ if he lib, he’ll grow,” said Judy, oracularly, as she relinquished the child. “All de young things—birds, an’ rabbits, an’ babies—beat dat er way in de head an’ in de chist. Dar de bell now!” and Judy folded her sun-bonnet and laid it, slats sidewise, on the top of her head.
Cely sighed as the teasing laugh of the women rang back to her; then, with a parting caress, she laid her baby in the cradle and followed.
Old Maumer, bent and sullen, stood in the doorway until the last figure had turned the hill-path.