aby, with Emma Jane's nosegay of buttercups in its tiny
wrinkled hand, smiled as if it might have been loved and longed for and
mourned.

"We've done all we can now without a minister," whispered Rebecca. "We
could sing, God is ever good' out of the Sunday school song book, but
I'm afraid somebody would hear us and think we were gay and happy.
What's that?"

A strange sound broke the stillness; a gurgle, a yawn, a merry little
call. The two girls ran in the direction from which it came, and there,
on an old coat, in a clump of goldenrod bushes, lay a child just waking
from a refreshing nap.

"It's the other baby that Lizy Ann Dennett told about!" cried Emma Jane.

"Isn't he beautiful!" exclaimed Rebecca. "Come straight to me!" and she
stretched out her arms.

The child struggled to its feet, and tottered, wavering, toward the warm
welcome of the voice and eyes. Rebecca was all mother, and her maternal
instincts had been well developed in the large family in which she was
next to the eldest. She had always confessed that there were perhaps a
trifle too many babies at Sunnybrook Farm, but, nevertheless, had she
ever heard it, she would have stood loyally by the Japanese proverb:
"Whether brought forth upon the mountain or in the field, it matters
nothing; more than a treasure of one thousand ryo a baby precious is."

"You darling thing!" she crooned, as she caught and lifted the child.
"You look just like a Jack-o'-lantern."

The boy was clad in a yellow cotton dress, very full and stiff. His hair
was of such a bright gold, and so sleek and shiny, that he looked like
a fair, smooth little pumpkin. He had wide blue eyes full of laughter,
a neat little vertical nose, a neat little horizontal mouth with his
few neat little teeth showing very plainly, and on the whole Rebecca's
figure of speech was not so wide of the mark.

"Oh, Emma Jane! Isn't he too lovely to go to the poor farm? If only we
were married we could keep him and say nothing and nobody would know the
difference! Now that the Simpsons have gone away there isn't a single
baby in Riverboro, and only one in Edgewood. It's a perfect shame, but
I can't do anything; you remember Aunt Miranda wouldn't let me have the
Simpson baby when I wanted to borrow her just for one rainy Sunday."

"My mother won't keep him, so it's no use to ask her; she says most
every day she's glad we're grown up, and she thanks the Lord there
wasn't but two of us."

"And Mrs. Peter