eckon
it won't hurt ye to take care of it for a night. Dad can't--and if he
could, he don't know how. Liked to have pizened me after mar died.
No, young man, I don't propose to ask Hank Fisher to tote thet child
over to Eureka and back, and spile his fun."

"Then I suppose I must make way for Mr. Hank--Hank--Fisher?" said
North, with the least tinge of sarcasm in his speech.

"Of course. You've got nothing else to do, you know."

North would have given worlds to have pleaded a previous engagement on
business of importance, but he knew that Bessy spoke truly. He had
nothing to do. "And Fisher has, I suppose?" he asked.

"Of course--to look after ME!"

A more unpleasant evening James North had not spent since the first day
of his solitude. He almost began to hate the unconscious cause of his
absurd position, as he paced up and down the floor with it. "Was there
ever such egregious folly?" he began, but remembering he was quoting
Maria North's favorite resume of his own conduct, he stopped. The
child cried, missing, no doubt, the full rounded curves and plump arm
of its nurse. North danced it violently, with an inward accompaniment
that was not musical, and thought of the other dancers. "Doubtless,"
he mused, "she has told this beau of hers that she has left the baby
with the 'looney' Man on the Beach. Perhaps I may be offered a
permanent engagement as a harmless simpleton accustomed to the care of
children. Mothers may cry for me. The doctor is at Eureka. Of
course, he will be there to see his untranslated goddess, and condole
with her over the imbecility of the Man on the Beach." Once he
carelessly asked Joe who the company were.

"Well," said Joe, mournfully, "thar's Widder Higsby and darter; the
four Stubbs gals; in course Polly Doble will be on hand with that
feller that's clerking over at the Head for Jones, and Jones's wife.
Then thar's French Pete, and Whisky Ben, and that chap that shot
Archer,--I disremember his name,--and the barber--what's that little
mulatto's name--that 'ar Kanaka? I swow!" continued Joe, drearily,
"I'll be forgettin' my own next--and--"

"That will do," interrupted North, only half concealing his disgust as
he rose and carried the baby to the other room, beyond the reach of
names that might shock its ladylike ears. The next morning he met the
from-dance-returning Bessy abstractedly, and soon took his leave, full
of a disloyal plan, conceived in the sleeplessness of her