going to work when he heard a baby cry, and he found you on a step. He
looked about to call some one, and as he did so a man came out from
behind a tree and ran away. You cried so loud that Jerome didn't like to
put you back on the step again. While he was wondering what to do, some
more men came along, and they all decided that they'd take you to the
police station. You wouldn't stop crying. Poor mite, you must have been
cold. But then, when they got you warm at the station house, you still
cried, so they thought you were hungry, and they got you some milk. My!
you were hungry! When you'd had enough they undressed you and held you
before the fire. You were a beautiful pink boy, and all dressed in
lovely clothes. The lieutenant wrote down a description of the clothes
and where you were found, and said that he should have to send you to
the Home unless one of the men liked to take charge of you. Such a
beautiful, fine child it wouldn't be difficult to bring up, he said, and
the parents would surely make a search for it and pay any one well for
looking after it, so Jerome said he'd take it. Just at that time I had a
baby the same age. So I was well able to feed both you two mites. There,
dearie, that was how I came to be your mother."

"Oh, Mamma, Mamma!"

"Yes, dearie, there! and at the end of three months I lost my own little
baby and then I got even more fond of you. It was such a pity Jerome
couldn't forget, and seeing at the end of three years that your parents
hadn't come after you, he tried to make me send you to the Home. You
heard why I didn't do as he told me?"

"Oh, don't send me to the Home," I cried, clinging to her, "Mother
Barberin, please, please, don't send me to the Home."

"No, dearie, no, you shan't go. I'll settle it. Jerome is not really
unkind, you'll see. He's had a lot of trouble and he is kind of worried
about the future. We'll all work, you shall work, too."

"Yes, yes, I'll do anything you want me to do, but don't send me to the
Home."

"You shan't go, that is if you promise to go to sleep at once. When he
returns he mustn't find you awake."

She kissed me and turned me over with my face to the wall. I wanted to
go to sleep, but I had received too hard a blow to slip off quietly into
slumberland. Dear good Mother Barberin was not my own mother! Then what
was a real mother? Something better, something sweeter still? It wasn't
possible! Then I thought that a real father might not have held