llful dark hair, a sweetly tilted little nose, a boyish, masterful
way, coquettish twinkles, dimples in most perilous places, rosy cheeks,
a tender little figure, an aristocratic toss to her head: why,
indeed--the catalogue of her charms has no end to it! Courage to boot,
too--as though youth and loveliness were not sufficient endowment--and
uncompromising honesty with herself and all the world. She took in
washing from the camps: there was nothing else to do, with Gray Billy
Batch lost in Rattle Water, and now decently stowed away by the Reverend
John Fairmeadow. It was lonely in Gray Billy Batch's cabin, now, of
course; it was sometimes almost intolerably so--and ghostly, too, with
echoes of long-past footsteps and memories of soft motherly words.
Pattie Batch, however, a practical little person, knew in her own mind,
you must be informed, exactly how to still the haunting echoes and
transform the memories into blessed companions of her busy, gentle
solitude; but she had not as yet managed the solution.

Pattie Batch wanted a baby. Companionship, of course, would be a mere
by-product of a baby's presence in the cabin; the real wealth and
advantage would be a glowing satisfaction in the baby. At any rate,
Pattie Batch wanted one: she always had--and she simply couldn't help
it. Babies, however, were not numerous at Swamp's End; in point of fact,
there was only one--a perfectly adorable infant, it must be understood,
a suitable child, and worthy, in every respect, of being heartily
desired by any woman--which unhappily belonged to the bartender who
lived with Pale Peter of the Red Elephant saloon. No use asking for
_that_ baby! Not outright. It could be borrowed, however. Pattie Batch
_had_ borrowed it; she had borrowed it frequently, of late, and had
mysteriously measured it with a calculating eye, and had estimated, and
scowled in doubt, and scratched her head, and pursed her sweet red lips,
and had secretly spanned the baby, from chin to toe and across the back,
with an industriously inquiring thumb and little finger. But a borrowed
baby, it seems, is of no use whatsoever; the satisfaction is said to be
temporary--nothing more--and to leave a sense of vacant arms and a
stinging aggravation of envy. So what Pattie Batch wanted was a baby to
_keep_--a baby she could call her own and cherish against meddling--a
baby that should be so rosy and fat and curly, so neat and white, so
scrubbed and highly polished from crown to