"If they do, then may we have her?" asked Nancy Ellen.
Kate threw out her hands. "Take my eyes, or my hands, or my
feet," she said; "but leave me my heart."
Nancy Ellen went soon after, and did not come again for several
days. Then she began coming as usual, so that the baby soon knew
her and laughed in high glee when she appeared. Dr. Gray often
stopped in passing to see her; if he was in great haste, he
hallooed at the gate to ask if she was all right. Kate was
thankful for this, more than thankful for the telephone and car
that would bring him in fifteen minutes day or night, if he were
needed. But he was not needed. Little Poll throve and grew fat
and rosy; for she ate measured food, slept by the clock, in a
sanitary bed, and was a bathed, splendidly cared for baby. When
Kate's family and friends laughed, she paid not the slightest
heed.
"Laugh away," she said. "I've got something to fight with this
baby; I don't propose for the battle to come and find the chances
against me, because I'm unprepared."
With scrupulous care Kate watched over the child, always putting
her first, the house and land afterward. One day she looked up
the road and saw Henry Peters coming. She had been expecting
Nancy Ellen. She had finished bathing the baby and making her
especially attractive in a dainty lace ruffled dress with blue
ribbons and blue shoes that her sister had brought on her latest
trip. Little Poll was a wonderful picture, for her eyes were
always growing bigger, her cheeks pinker, her skin fairer, her
hair longer and more softly curling. At first thought Kate had
been inclined to snatch off the dress and change to one of the
cheap, ready-made ginghams Henry brought, but the baby was so
lovely as she was, she had not the heart to spoil the picture,
while Nancy Ellen might come any minute. So she began putting
things in place while Little Poll sat crowing and trying to pick
up a sunbeam that fell across her tray. Her father came to the
door and stood looking at her. Suddenly he dropped in a chair,
covered his face with his hands and began to cry, in deep,
shuddering sobs. Kate stood still in wonderment. As last she
seated herself before him and said gently: "Won't you tell me
about it, Henry?"
Henry struggled for self-control. He looked at the baby
longingly. Finally he said: "It's pretty tough to give up a baby
like that, Mrs. Holt. She's my little girl. I wish God had
struck my right hand with palsy, when I went to sign those
papers."
"Oh, no, you don't, Henry," said Kate, suavely. "You wouldn't
like to live the rest of your life a cripple. And is it any worse
for me to have your girl in spite of the real desires and dictates
of your heart, than it was for you to have mine? And you didn't
take the intelligent care of my girl that I'm taking of yours,
either. A doctor and a little right treatment at the proper time
would have saved Polly to rear her own baby; but there's no use to
go into that. I was waiting for Polly to come home of her own
accord, as she left it; and while I waited, a poison crept into
her system that took her. I never shall feel right about it;
neither shall you -- "