"
"Good!" said I. "I never thought of that. What a novel thing it
would be to witness the gradual growth of a hod-carrier! I'll make
him a little hod, now, to begin with. He couldn't have a more
suitable toy."
"I was talking in earnest," she said. "Take your baby, and please
carry him home as quick as you can, for I am certainly not going to
take care of him."
"Of course not," said I. "Now that I see how it's done, I'm going
to do it myself. Jonas will mix his feed and I will give it to
him. He looks sleepy now. Shall I take him upstairs and lay him
on our bed?"
"No, indeed," cried Euphemia. "You can put him on a quilt on the
floor, until after luncheon, and then you must take him home."
I laid the young Milesian on the folded quilt which Euphemia
prepared for him, where he turned up his little pug nose to the
ceiling and went contentedly to sleep.
That afternoon I nailed four legs on a small packing-box and made a
bedstead for him. This, with a pillow in the bottom of it, was
very comfortable, and instead of taking him home, I borrowed, in
the evening, some baby night-clothes from Pomona, and set about
preparing Pat for the night.
This Euphemia would not allow, but silently taking him from me, she
put him to bed.
"To-morrow," she said, "you must positively take him away. I wont
stand it. And in our room, too."
"I didn't talk in that way about the baby you adopted," I said.
To this she made no answer, but went away to attend, as usual, to
Pomona's baby, while its mother washed the dishes.
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