e.

The old man's mouth quivered into a smile. He went to the back of the
room, and took a key from a nail.

"I think I can find thee a real cosy little place," he said; "shan't I
carry the baby for thee?"

She hesitated, and looked up into his solemn, kindly face. Then she held
the precious bundle toward him.

"I guess I'll have to let you. I didn't really know it till I got here,
but I begin to feel, oh! so awful tired," she said, with a long, sighing
breath, as Enoch folded his gaunt arms about the baby.

They went up the street together, and Enoch unlocked Jerry's house and
showed the stranger in. She walked straight across the room to the
cradle. When she turned around her eyes were swimming.

"Oh, I think it's just _lovely_ here," she said; "I feel better already.
This is such a nice little house, and so many wild flowers everywhere,
and they smell so sweet--I _know_ Baby will like it."

She relieved Enoch of his burden and laid it on the bed.

The old man lingered a little.

"Thee needn't worry about provisions or anything," he said hesitatingly;
"some of the neighbors will come in and help thee get started. Thee'll
want to rest now. I guess I'll be going."

"Oh, you mustn't go without seeing Baby!" insisted the young mother,
beginning to unswathe the shapeless bundle on the bed.

Enoch moved nearer, and waited until the tiny crumpled bud of a face
appeared among the wrappings.

"_Isn't_ he sweet?" pleaded the girl rapturously.

Enoch bent over and gazed into the quaint little sleeping countenance.

"He's a very nice baby," he said, with gentle emphasis.

"And _so_ good," the girl-voice rippled on; "he never cried but once on
the way out here, and that time I didn't blame him one bit; I wanted to
cry myself,--we were so hot and tired and dusty. But he sleeps--oh, the
way he _does_ sleep. There! did you notice him smile? I think he knows
my voice. He often smiles that way when I am talking to him."

She caught him out of his loosened sheath and held him against her
breast with the look on her face that has baffled the art of so many
centuries.

It was thus that Enoch remembered her as he went down the street to the
store.

"I would have taken her right home to Rachel," he said to himself, "but
women folks sometimes ask a good many unnecessary questions, and the
poor thing is tired."

V.

So the little widow and her baby became the wards of the town of
Muscatel. After one or two unsucces