Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/288

276 He looked down at his feet. "She 'll tell you, I guess."

His manner alarmed her. She hurried to the bedroom and found Hetty lying among the pillows, her eyes dilated, her lips trembling. "Mother," she said, clutching at the old woman's hard hand, "don't go away. Don't leave me. I 'm—I 'm frightened."

"What is it?" the mother whispered. "What is it? " And even as she asked it, she knew.… "Dear God," she laughed, while the girl clung to her, "I wanted nothin' but to stay with yuh. Who said I was goin' to leave yuh. Don't be a fool, gurl. What 're yuh scared o'? D' yuh think yuh 're the first woman ever had a baby? Wait now. Yuh 're hungry. That 's what 's wrong with yuh. Where 's that broth?"

She ran out to the kitchen with it to warm it up. "There!" she said to Bailey. "What 'd I tell yuh! We 'll have no more trouble in this house. Sit down there an' eat yer dinner like a man an' a father. I 'll beat y' at cribbage when I get her off to sleep."

She chuckled to herself, good-naturedly, over the stove: "I hope it 'll be a gurl, an' marry young. I do that. 'T 'ud serve Hetty dang well right if she lived to be a mother-in-law hersilf, fer her sins.… A mother-in-law! An' they make jokes about us in the paypers!"