bout it, when it's here. He's the kind. I know plenty of them. They
make me furious, but they're all right in the end."

"I wish he didn't have to see it until it was two years old. I've seen
some of the tiny ones, Bobs, and they're awful."

The next day Jane's time came. She asked them to telephone for Jerry,
and when he arrived she seemed to find comfort in having him beside her.
They talked and he read to her until she could not listen any longer.
Just before she had her first hypodermic she turned to him.

"Stay with me, Jerry."

"Of course."

"If anything happens to me, let Bobs take care of the baby."

That was her last conscious sentence, and her next was: "Can't you hurry
it up?" Then she vaguely saw the doctor giving something in a glass to
a haggard-looking man, who sat by the bed. She finally made out that the
man was Jerry. She heard the doctor say that he would be all right, so
she went to sleep in peace.

Seven hours later she opened her eyes. It was night. The nurse was
bending over a bed in the corner. Her mind went back.

"Is that Jerry?" she asked.

"It's _little_ Jerry," the nurse said, and lifted a swaddled bundle and
brought it to her. She looked at it long and seriously.

"You're sure that's mine?" she said.

"Very sure."

"Take it away, please."

"It's a grand baby, Mrs. Paxton."

"Did my husband see it?"

"Not yet. The doctor put him to bed."

"Don't let him see it. Keep it covered up."

"But he'll be wanting to see his son."

"Not till he's better looking. It would be an awful shock to Jerry to
see it now."

Then she went to sleep again. When she woke, Jerry was beside her.

"I'm sorry he's so plain," was her first word.

"He's a fine boy, Jane," he said, with a gulp.

Two days later, when Bobs was admitted, Jane confessed to her her
shortcomings in the new role.

"I didn't do it right at all, Bobs."

"Why not?"

"In books and plays the mother always says, 'My baby, my own beautiful
boy,' when they put her infant in her arms. The father always says,
'little mother!' You know, you've seen it in pictures. Well, _I_ said:
'It's ugly, take it away,' and Jerry lied to comfort me."

Bobs and the nurse laughed at this tragic tale.

"I like him better than I did at first, though. He has nice hands," Jane
admitted.

Bobs inspected the hero again.

"I think he's a duck of a bambino," she said. "He looks quite human."

"Well, I should hope so," said his mother indign