Chapter VI: The Ugly-Looking House

YOU have no idea what a life that baby led them, unless you have a little brother or sister at home. I suppose you have but little idea how a baby can cry, who is very tired, and hungry, and a good deal frightened; for by this time he began to think it the strangest thing in life that his mother did not come and attend to him.

Christie took a hint from the pale young man, and began to walk up and down the car, with baby in her arms. But he was much heavier than the baby at home, and it took very little of this exercise to make her young back ache.

Wells looked on sympathetically, as well as a little indignantly. Unable to take a step, or even to twist himself about, so that he could take the baby in his arms, he told himself that if he were that young man, he would see if he could not carry that baby a while, and not let a little girl tug with it all the time. Suppose he did yell, what of it? That was no more than he was doing now, every time he thought of it. He should like to see himself scared away by the crying of a baby!

As for the literary young lady, words could not express his contempt for her; he showed it by curling his lip most expressively whenever he looked in her direction. But she, having once more buried herself in her book, lost all this.

"I know what the poor little fellow would like," said Christie, returning to Wells, during a lull. "He is so hungry that he can't help crying. He keeps stuffing both his little hands into his mouth; they are always hungry when they do that. His mother had some milk in a bottle for him, in that little satchel she carried in her hand. I saw her offer him some once, but he wasn't hungry just then, and pushed it away. I just wish she had left the bag when she went away, but she carried it on her arm."

"Probably it had her pocket-book in it as well as a bottle of milk," Wells said. And then: "I'm sorry for the poor little chap, if he is hungry: we all stand a fair chance to be in the same fix if we stay here long."

"I have cookies, and things," said Christie thoughtfully, "but they won't do for babies, you know."

"I don't know a thing about it," declared Wells. "But I should think that folks would rather have them eat cookies than starve."

There was no denying this, so Christie only laughed, but as yet she did not resort to cookies. She thought of the rows of milk pans ranged on the shelves at home—if she only had one of them! She thought of the milk-can that had started from home with them, what a pity that its stopping place had been one station back.

Away over in the fields, no other house near it, stood what looked like a bit of a farmhouse. Christie wondered whether they had milk there, and whether somebody couldn't go there and try to get some. She mentioned the wonder to Wells.

"It's a forlorn little place," he said, trying to raise himself on one elbow to see it, frowning deeply with pain as he did so.

"I don't believe they have any milk there that is fit to drink. Besides, how could a body get to it? They would get up to their ears in mud. Those fields look as though they had no bottom to them. My! How quick I would skip over there if I had the use of my feet!"

Christie could not help smiling again, at the apparent contradictions in his words. But she kept looking out at the little house, between her soothings of the baby.

"I most believe I will try it," she said at last. "Something has got to be done; this baby is almost starved. I suppose that he was so busy gazing about him this morning that he could not eat his breakfast."

"You!" said Wells, regarding her with surprise, mingled with respect. "Why, you would stick fast in the mud. I don't believe that mother of yours would like such doings at all."

Christie looked down at her trim new shoes; she so seldom had a new pair that these were treasures. A little nicer they were, than any she ever had before. She remembered, too, her mother's oft-repeated charge, on no account to step off the train until they reached the city. Yet she said resolutely: "My mother always likes me to do things that ought to be done. I think I am going to try it. I don't see another person who would be likely to go."

"Suppose you try the young lady in the velvet gown?" said Wells. "She has almost finished her story."

Then he and Christie both laughed. Her face sobered at once, and she began to take anxious looks through the cars. The old gentleman was not to be thought of for a moment; his hair was too white to think of his taking a tramp like that. There was the pale-faced man, but she looked regretfully at his shining boots and beautiful pantaloons. The mud would certainly ruin them; and what a plight he would be in when they reached the city! She almost thought he would go, if she were to ask him, but it did seem too bad to do so.

"Oh, baby, baby!" she said in a soft cooing tone. "Couldn't you possibly lay your head on my shoulder and take a nice little nap? Then perhaps the train will go on in a few minutes, and maybe the bridge isn't down at all. And maybe the nine o'clock train will come in all right, and bring your mamma, and she will have a bottle full of nice milk for you."

But the baby was utterly disgusted with this suggestion. He put no faith in any of it; he angrily bobbed up his head as often as Christie tried to cuddle it in her neck. He snatched at her hair, and tried to pull the very braids out by the roots; he scratched at her face, and in various other ways conducted himself like a tiger.

Wells, meantime, seeing Christie glance towards the house in the fields, with a resolution of some sort growing on her face, made a suggestion:

"There is one thing you want to think of, whoever tramps off there, runs the risk of having this train skip off and leave them. I dare say we may go in a little while; trains are hardly ever detained as long as they think they are going to be. Once, when we were East, there was something the matter with the track, and the conductor didn't think we could go on under three hours, and father let my sister Estelle and I go and take a walk. And in just half an hour that train went on, and Estelle and I had no end of a time getting with our folks again!" concluded Wells, very wisely.

This story, like many other things in this world, had an exactly opposite effect from what was intended.

"I shall go myself," said Christie positively.

To herself she said: "I shall never ask that poor young man to go and run the risk of missing the train, when he is in such a hurry. And the rest of these people look as though they wouldn't do it for anything, and as though I would rather go three times than to ask them."

"What will you do if the train takes a notion to go on?" said Wells, dismayed for her.

"Why," said Christie, "if this train can go on, another can come, or go sometime, you know; and I could wait for it and take it. Would they take my ticket on another train?"

The startled tone in which she asked this question made Wells understand that her ticket was a matter of importance to her. He set her mind at rest about that, and then came to the front with a new idea:

"Have you a return ticket? When were you coming back, anyhow?"

"To-night," said Christie, laughing in spite of all the troubles of the way. "Do you suppose I shall get there in time to come back? What did you say about a return ticket? Ought I to have one?"

"Why, that is the way they generally do," this old traveller explained, "buy a round trip ticket, you know, it saves ten or fifteen cents. But it is of no consequence, you can just as well buy one at the city station if you ever get there."

Christie looked down at her ticket with a perplexed and sorrowful air; it was not round certainly. If it ought to have been, and if anything that she could have done about it would have saved her fifteen cents, she was very sorry, for money was of great consequence to her.

"I did not know about it," she said meekly; and felt that she did not yet know, and that, by and by, when things were quieter, she would ask Wells why it was that round tickets were cheaper, and why they did not give her one.

Meantime, the poor discouraged baby had settled into a restless slumber; Christie had been watching his eyes shut, while she walked slowly back and forth in the car. She did not believe he would sleep long, he was too hungry for that. And now her resolution was formed.

"I'm going over there to try to get some milk," she said firmly. "If somebody would make a nice little pillow of my shawl, I could lay the poor baby down. Do you suppose the old gentleman with the gold glasses would see that he did not roll off the seat?"

"Why do you pick him out?" asked Wells, amused over the whole thing, and much disgusted that he could not help. "Give me the shawl; I can roll it up. I haven't sprained my 'hands,' at least. Now lay the young scamp down, and go and give the old gentleman our compliments, and say that he is appointed special guard, with orders not to fall asleep at his post, under pain of being scratched."

Christie's eyes were brim full of fun, but she went over to the old gentleman, with a gravely gentle face, and made known her petition.

"Eh, what?" he said, coming back from some day-dream with a sigh. Oh yes, certainly he would keep the poor little fellow from rolling off. "But if he cries," he said anxiously, "I shall not know what to do; I never could do anything with babies when they cried."

Christie could only hope that this one would not cry. And having established the guard where she wanted him, she prepared to set off.

By this time Wells had another idea. He had been fumbling in his pocket, and now drew out his handsome Russia leather pocket-book.

"Just let me furnish the funds for the youngster, won't you? Since I can't help in any other way."

"Will I need money?" Christie asked, stopping with a startled air to look into his face.

Her mother lived in a little house back in the fields, but she would never think of taking money in return for a little milk to be given to a hungry baby.

"Why, of course," said Wells. "That is, if you get any milk, which I doubt; the house doesn't look like it from here. But you will have to buy a pitcher, or something to put it in; they won't trust you. They'll think you are a tramp, you know. Offer to pay them well, and the little chap will fare a good deal better than he will if you ask a favour."

As he spoke, he held out a crisp bank note.

Christie took it slowly, with a bright glow on her cheeks. It was a five dollar bill. She had never had so much money in her hands before: and to tell the truth she did not quite like to have this in her hands. She had to remind herself that the milk was not for her, and that she certainly had not money enough of her own to pay for it, and get back home with. Just then—wise little woman that she was—came into play some of the good sense which her good mother had tried so hard to teach her. She handed back the crisp new note.

"Give me something smaller, please," she said pleasantly, "I don't like to carry so much, nor to offer it; they would think I was a very suspicious tramp. Milk is only ten cents a quart, and a pitcher or a tin pail does not cost much."

It was Wells' turn to blush now; he plainly saw that she had been the more business-like of the two. And crumbling the bill in his hand, he produced some shining silver pieces in its place, and Christie went.

Oh, but that mud was deep! How quickly were the trim new shoes besmeared all over with a thick yellow plaster? Worse than that, they were getting too heavy to carry; it was as much as she could do to drag them from one bog to the other, for the road seemed to be made up of a succession of bogs.

Once she came to a little pool of muddy water, came to it before she saw it; splashed right in, and soaked her feet away above the ankles, and spattered the pretty dress. Dear! Dear! If mother could see her now! What a thing it was to go off on a Christmas ride!

It was a long walk: much longer than it had seemed from the car window. With every step, the difficulty of getting on increased, and once she had really to lean against a friendly post that seemed set up to mark the lot, and try to dig the mud from her shoes. How surely they were ruined; and they were to have been her Sunday best for a year!

There was another sad thought connected with all this: What a plight she would be in by the time she reached Uncle Daniel's. And mother had taken such pride in having her so neatly dressed, with a new-fashioned jacket and all! What with the mud, and the weariness, and the anxiety, she could hardly keep the tears from falling as they rushed into her eyes. But she shut them back resolutely, and said aloud:

"I 'know' I am doing right. That baby will get sick if he don't have his milk; and a baby is worth more than ten pairs of shoes and a new dress besides."

Now she was fairly at the gate of the little ugly-looking house. In a minute more, she would be inside.

No, she wouldn't. Bow, wow! wow! Here was a fellow who disputed the way with her, and came suddenly towards her, as if the least that he should think of doing was to swallow her at once.

Now it happened that Christie, unusually brave about most things, was dreadfully afraid of a dog.

She gave a pitiful little shriek, and the next thing she knew, she was picking herself out of the meanest-looking mud hole she had seen in her trip. The dog had retired to a safe distance, and with his head hung down, and his silly little tail between his legs, was receiving a lecture from a woman with a frowzy head, and sleeves rolled up at the elbow, who appeared in the door of the little house.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself!" she said, shaking her head. "A decent dog you are to be cutting up such tricks! Come along, child. What do you want? There's no kind of need of your being afraid of that there dog; there ain't a bigger coward in all Kansas than he is. Mercy on me! What a fix you are in! I guess your ma, whoever she is, will give you something to make you remember Bose. You've just about ruined your dress. Where did you come from, anyway?"

Poor Christie, her face in a deeper glow than had been on it during this eventful morning, limping a little on one foot, and wondering whether this was another sprain, made her way across the stretch of mud that still lay between her and the house, and began her story.

The open door gave her a view of quite a good-sized kitchen in which all sorts of household work seemed to be going on at once. A smell of cabbage came from the big pot on the stove; a smell of gingerbread came from the open door of the oven, where a young woman knelt to examine it, a pan of apples partly pared sat on the table, and quite close to them tied into a chair, sat a yellow-headed baby in a pink calico dress, and wearing a pug nose, washed-out blue eyes, and a soiled face.

He looked utterly unlike the baby in the cars, and did not once suggest the baby at home. Yet Christie was glad to see him. Probably they had milk, and they would have tender hearts for other babies.

"If you please," she began in a gentle explanatory tone, the woman still standing in the door, holding it partly open, "I came from the cars over here: the train is stopped by some trouble, and there is a poor baby whose mother—" here she gave a little squeal and sprang past the woman in the door, quite into the kitchen.

"For the land's sake! I believe she's crazy!" Thus much the woman said, before she saw what was the matter. And really by the time she saw, there was nothing the matter; the danger was over.

It was just one of those things that happen in a second, or else they do not happen at all. There was a girl about the size of Christie whose business it evidently was to attend to the restless, tied-up baby, and who had been so occupied in staring at Christie that she had entirely forgotten her duty. Baby thus left to employ his wits, discovered that by a sudden tilting motion he could tip his chair backwards, and give himself a ride. Moreover, I fancy, argued that this process might in time loosen the chains that bound him to the chair; so he tried it.

Just as Christie looked that way, he had tried it for the fourth time with such effect that the chair lost its balance, and the glowing stove was exactly behind it! In reality the baby's head did not touch the stove at all, because he held it up and yelled. At least that was one reason; the other was that in less than a quarter of a second, the chair was righted by Christie herself; for just one spring brought her from the door to the chair.

But dear me! You should have seen the excitement which prevailed in the little log house then. That baby was just as important as any other baby in the world. His mother untied with nervous fingers the string that bound him, and hugged, and kissed, and cried over him, and praised Christie, and scolded Sarah Ann, all in one breath.

"Just to think!" she said. "If you hadn't a-seen him just at that minute and sprung like a deer, he might a-been burned to a crisp! Mother's precious darling Jimmy! Sarah Ann, you good for nothing young one you, don't stand there whimpering; if you had been attending to your business instead of staring, this wouldn't have happened. Go out into the woodshed, do; you make me sick."

This advice was accompanied by a box on the ear; not a hard slap, in fact, I doubt whether Sarah Ann felt it at all. But that she felt the tongue, and was painfully ashamed, was evident her face flamed a deep red, and her sobs came deeply drawn, as she vanished by the woodshed door. Christie felt sorry for her, and indignant with her mother. There was a very great difference in mothers, certainly, greater than she had ever supposed.

The indignation gave her courage to tell her story rapidly and well.

There were a great many exclamations over it, and a great many questions asked and answered, and Christie had to kiss the baby, which she would not have minded at all if his face had been clean. She had a chance to wash the mud from her face and hands, and the woman herself carefully brushed the mud from the pretty suit, bewailing the stains, and finding one place with a zigzag tear. It all took time, and Christie was conscious of listening painfully for the whistle of the departing train.

But at last, she was started on her way; her shoes exchanged for a pair of ugly-looking boots, which the woman told her she might leave in the bog by the railroad track, and she had the comfort of hearing it said in a loud whisper that they were so awful worn out and good for nothing that Josiah wouldn't care much if she did make off with them. After that, Christie had a mind not to take them, but she looked down at the shoes hung over her arm, which had been cleaned, and could be dried when she reached the train, and concluded to be meek, especially since they did not know her at all. How could they be sure that she did not want to run away with Josiah's boots?

On her arm she had a pail of milk, which looked rich and creamy, and she had bought a new little tin cup which the woman said they got for Jimmy only yesterday. For the cup she paid eight cents, and for the pail twenty-five, but they would take nothing for the milk, and there was a good quart, Christie calculated.

On the whole, her trip back to the train was much pleasanter than the journey out had been. She discovered that day why boys wore boots, a thing that she had never understood before. They certainly made their way through the mud much better than shoes.

There stood the train, without apparently having had a thought of going away to leave her.

She set down her pail, and carefully pulled off the boots and laid them in a sort of gully at the side of the track, then slipped into her own wet ones, and climbed into the train. None too soon, for baby was shrieking wildly. The old gentleman looked relieved when he saw her.

"Well, little woman," he said, "our hopes all rest on you. If you can quiet this storm, we shall owe you a debt of gratitude."

"We've been having a first-class circus here," said Wells, "ever since you went. You hadn't jumped the first mud puddle when he opened his eyes and looked around him and began. That 'Seaside Library' woman over there is going to have him sent to the house of correction as soon as ever we reach the city. I see it in her eyes."

"Poor fellow!" said Christie: but she did not mean the old gentleman in spectacles, nor yet Wells Burton.