The Boy Grew Older Part 4

But no sooner was his foot lifted than the child began to howl louder than ever. Peter suddenly reached toward him.

"Look out," cried Miss Haine in alarm. "You mustn't touch his head."

Peter cared nothing about the head. It was the high boxed shoulders which he wanted, for some reason, to touch. He patted the child twice.

"I wouldn't cry like that," he said. But the child continued.

"He thinks I put soap in his eyes," explained Miss Haine. "Tell him I didn't."

Peter thought it would be silly to say anything like that to the baby.

He patted him twice more and said, "There, there."

"You're going to have your bottle in just a minute now," cooed Miss Haine, drying the child with a vigor which it resented. She put him back into his crib and presented the bottle.

Instantly he ceased crying and drank noisily. He drank a good deal more than he could conveniently swallow and milk began to spill out at the corners of his mouth. The flash of interest which had animated Peter died away. Indeed his feeling slumped down through indifference to dislike.

"I suppose," said Miss Haine, "you're going to keep him on cow's milk from now on."

"Cow's milk?" said Peter. "That's what he's got in the bottle now, isn't it? It's all right for him, I suppose?"

"In theory," said Dr. Clay, "bottle babies don't do quite so well, but it doesn't make much difference. I imagine more than half the children in New York today are brought up on bottles."

"By the way," he continued, "I don't want to pry into your affairs, Mr.

Neale, but I suppose the little fellow's got a grandmother or somebody you can turn him over to."

"No," said Peter, "he hasn't got any grandmother that I know of. I guess we'll just have to get along without one."

"I can give you the telephone number of an agency where you could get a trained nurse for him. That would insure expert care for a month or so while you're looking around trying to make some more permanent arrangement."

Peter shook his head. He had come to hate the hospital. Any starched person would remind him constantly of Maria and her letter and her running away.

"I think I've got somebody," he said. He was thinking of Kate. She had been part of his life before he met Maria. And then there couldn't be any scandal concerning Kate. She was about sixty. Before the baby was born Kate had discussed the possibility of his paying her more than she got for part time housekeeping and letting her be a nurse for the child.

"Well, whoever you get," advised Dr. Clay, "I want you to buy this book.

I'll write it down for you--it's Dr. Kerley's, I've always found it the best--and have her follow the directions carefully."

Peter put the slip in his pocket. "I'll come around for the baby at ten," he said. He took one more glance at the crib, but the milk guzzling still continued. He left without saying goodbye to anybody except Miss Haine and Dr. Clay. As he went out the front door he suddenly said, "d.a.m.n!" He remembered that Kate couldn't read.

CHAPTER V

On the way back to the flat in West Sixty-sixth Street, Peter stopped at a store and asked for Dr. Kerley's book. The clerk was sorry that it was not in stock. Of course he could order it.

"I want something right away," said Peter. They rummaged around on a shelf marked miscellaneous and found, "Your Child," and "The Christian Nursery." Neither seemed from its t.i.tle quite to answer the needs of Peter, but since there was nothing else he took them both. Arriving at his flat in West Sixty-sixth Street three doors away from Central Park, Peter found Kate on hand. He had seen her just for a minute on his return from Goldfield but not since he had learned his news at the hospital. He did not know whether or not she knew.

"My wife's gone away," he said. "And she won't be back."

"Yes, sir," replied Kate. Peter liked her for that. Whether she was surprised or not she made no sign.

"Now," he continued, "I've got to bring the baby back here tomorrow.

It's a boy. There isn't anybody I know to turn him over to. I want you to come and live here and be his nurse. I'll pay you fifteen dollars a week. You remember you said you would come for ten when we were talking about it before. I'm going to pay you more because you'll have to do the whole job now."

"I want one night a week off, Mr. Neale," said Kate.

"That'll be all right if you make it Sunday. I guess I can learn enough to take care of him once a week. I've got a couple of books here that tell how to do it. This baby's going to be brought up right, Kate. I want you to read these books too."

"Mr. Neale, I've broke my gla.s.ses and I can't see print at all without them. I'm an old woman, Mr. Neale."

"That's all right, Kate, I'll read you some of it so we can be ready for this baby when he comes tomorrow. Don't stand up. Sit down, Kate. This is called 'Your Child.' It's written by a woman named Alice Carter Scott."

Peter opened the book and decided to skip the preface.

"I had a sister in Brooklyn once," said Kate, "that was married to a man named Scott. She's dead these ten years, G.o.d rest her soul."

"It says," began Peter, skimming over the first page and deciding that a summary would be sufficient, "that the most important task in the world and the greatest blessing is to bring up children."

"'The first years of the child's life'" he read, "'roughly speaking from birth to the age of six, const.i.tute the most important period of the child's whole existence.'"

He skimmed ahead again until he found a heading, "Constructive Suggestions."

"'First of all,'" he read, "'I would say that the home cannot be a normal home unless the mother herself is a normal being---- '"

Peter tried to skip ahead rapidly. "'She must learn to discriminate between the essentials and the non-essentials in life. She must give the best of herself to important things and she must learn to eliminate or subordinate the non-important--'" Here Peter broke off and put the book down.

"This doesn't seem to be much good for us," he said. "It's all too general. Maybe we can get something more out of this one. This one's called 'The Christian Nursery,' That doesn't sound much good, but we'll see. 'Functions of the Family--.' 'The Functions of the family in human life are five-fold: (1) biological; (2) educational; (3) moral; (4) social; (5) religious.'"

He put it down impatiently. "These aren't what I wanted at all. I'll have to go and get that Dr. Kerley book they told me about in the hospital. I can get it in the morning."

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Neale," said Kate, "there's no need for me to have a book about babies. I raised five children and buried four. I'm not saying, mind you, that books aren't the great things for wisdom but it's not wisdom that little children do be needing. The Blessed Virgin herself, she didn't have to read in no books. I'll be bringing him up like he was my own son, Mr. Neale, and that's better than you'll be finding in all your fine books."

Peter was disposed to argue the proposition that all a woman needs to know about motherhood can be learned by having some children, but Kate got up and walked out into the kitchen to show that the interview was over. Peter never did get around to buying Dr. Kerley even for his own education. Still he could not quite dismiss the little he had read that night. He could not remember whether it was in the Christian book or the other that he had come across the paragraph about the mother--"She must learn to discriminate between the essentials and the non-essentials in life." He wondered whether it was essential that Maria should devote herself to the gurgling little child who cried about everything but spilt milk, or that she should go on dancing to the strains of that tune by Weber. He tried to hum it and couldn't. Then he sat and thought for a long time. In reply to a question from Kate he said that he didn't want any dinner. He was going out. Would she please be at the flat at ten o'clock as he expected to have the baby back by that time.

Presently Kate went out. Peter sat by the window and looked up towards the park. He could catch a glimpse of it by leaning out. There was a moon. A wind whipped through the trees and they were swaying back and then rushing forward again whenever the gusts gave them an opening. That was a sort of dance. He turned away from the window. There was nothing in the room to remind him of Maria except the grand piano. He would get rid of that. His mind began to lose its ache. He could accept the fact that Maria had gone. He would remember her now always as he had seen her that first night standing still in the centre of the stage just before she began to dance. The sight of Maria washing a baby would have been queer. It was all right for nurses and old Irish women and sporting writers to mess around with babies and soap and rubber-tipped milk bottles. Somehow or other he was glad he had never seen the greatest dancer in all the world with a mouth full of safety pins.

CHAPTER VI

Miss Haine seemed somewhat surprised when Peter arrived at the hospital alone the next morning. "You're not going to carry him back yourself?"

she said.

"Why not?"

"Have you ever held a baby?"