The Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo

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Title: Baby Mine

Author: Margaret Mayo

Posting Date: July 21, 2008 [EBook #860]
Release Date: March, 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BABY MINE ***

Produced by Charles Keller

BABY MINE

By Margaret Mayo

To my Helper and Husband

CHAPTER I

Even in college Alfred Hardy was a young man of fixed ideas and high
ideals and proud of it.

His friend, Jimmy Jinks, had few ideas and no ideals, and was glad of
it, and before half of their first college term had passed, Jimmy
had ridded himself of all such worries as making up his own mind or
directing his own morals. Alfred did all these things so much better,
argued Jimmy, furthermore, Alfred LIKED to do them--Jimmy owed it to his
friend to give him that pleasure.

The fact that Jimmy was several years Alfred's senior and twice his
size, in no way altered his opinion of Alfred's judgment, and through
their entire college course they agreed as one man in all their
discussions--or rather--in all Alfred's discussions.

But it was not until the close of their senior year that Alfred favoured
Jimmy with his views on matrimony.

Sitting alone in a secluded corner of the campus waiting for Alfred to
solve a problem in higher mathematics, Jimmy now recalled fragments of
Alfred's last conversation.

"No twelve dollar shoes and forty dollar hats for MY wife," his young
friend had raged and he condemned to Jimmy the wicked extravagance of
his own younger sisters. "The woman who gets me must be a home-maker.
I'll take her to the theatre occasionally, and now and then we'll have a
few friends in for the evening; but the fireside must be her magnet, and
I'll be right by her side each night with my books and my day's worries.
She shall be taken into my confidence completely; and I'll take good
care to let her know, before I marry her, just what I expect in return."

"Alfred certainly has the right idea about marriage," mused Jimmy, as
the toe of his boot shoved the gravel up and down the path. "There's
just one impractical feature about it." He was conscious of a slight