Page:Rilla of Ingleside (1921).djvu/103

 “Susan, what must be done for a baby?” she asked dolefully.

“You must keep it warm and dry and wash it every day, and be sure the water is neither too hot nor too cold, and feed it every two hours. If it has colic, you put hot things on its stomach,” said Susan, rather feebly and flatly for her.

The baby began to cry again.

“It must be hungry—it has to be fed anyhow,” said Rilla desperately. “Tell me what to get for it, Susan, and I'll get it.”

Under Susan’s directions a ration of milk and water was prepared, and a bottle obtained from the doctor’s office. Then Rilla lifted the baby out of the soup tureen and fed it. She brought down the old basket of her own infancy from the attic and laid the now sleeping baby in it. She put the soup tureen away in the pantry. Then she sat down to think things over.

The result of her thinking things over was that she went to Susan when the baby woke.

“I’m going to see what I can do, Susan. I can’t let that poor little thing go back to Mrs. Conover. Tell me how to wash and dress it.”

Under Susan’s supervision Rilla bathed the baby. Susan dared not help, other than by suggestion, for the doctor was in the living room and might pop in at any moment. Susan had learned by experience that when Dr. Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was. Rilla set her teeth and went ahead. In the name of goodness, how many wrinkles and kinks did a baby have? Why, there wasn’t enough of it to take hold of. Oh, suppose she let it slip into the water—it was so wobbly! If it would only stop