Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1880-05-28
What shall we doy What

there was silence, and then there was rest
rest, with the little head dropping on one
side, and sweet, secret sort of wisdom on
the little face.
"How they make you love them when they
are going to sleep" cried Miss Sophia. IF
we don't send this baby off to the selectmen
tomorrow, we never can
All day long the two women vent and
came about that mite. As for Susan, she
could not bear to leave it long enough merely
TO "slight" her work She stole back twenty
times to take another peep at it, wrapped to
suiocaton in its hannels and every time she
found Miss Sophia doing the same thing.
"There isn't nothing like baby said Su-
san. THAT little breaths ies' as sweet
as milk. l allus kiss EN- in the corner
of the mouth, SOS to get it. So There amt
no blossom the Lord ever blowed pretty Is that
mouth :" And then the waking baby would
squall and there would be a short and de-
csive struggle as to which one was to soothe
it-a struggle in which Miss Sophia, of course.
always came off conqueror, while Susan walk
cd up and down behind her, fixing the blank
ct.
"a great sight nicer pet than Miss Brown.
ellis monkey said the diplomatic Susan.
"What would you have called the baby,
Miss Sophia" asked Susan, after dinner was
cleared away and in An interval of the sewing
machine, allowing you had kept it?'
II don't know, really"
'You might have named it John, for your
father"
80 might"
what a comfort son is, to be sure, to "A
person that has grown old 80 said the artful
Susan Queer there isn't a boy in the
whole family. And l suppose your sisters
husbands would give their ears for one. John
McAllster. A good, honest name, and that's
what it is. How hopping 'twould make them
if you did adopt this boy"
am ashamed to say that last stroke did
the work
Susan. :" exclaimed Miss Sophia, 'you
put on your shawl and run right down to
Lawyer Holmes's-and don't you lose u min
ute-and tell him | want to see him. I'll
have papers Of adoption made out this very
day, if il can be done. take this child for
mine. to have and to hold, for better for
worse, in sickness and in health. And you
shall wait on it from this day out, Susan,
said Miss Sophia, solennly.
A promise which Miss Susan knew she
should literally fulfill, and which she accept
ed like religious VOWS, as she fell on her knees
before Miss Sophia aud the baby, and kissed
first Johnny and then her mistress, till they
all three cried together.
Susan was quite right in her judgment of
the way in which this would affect the broth
tTS-ln-hNs ne news Ethtutu lntul DtlOTt
dark, and quite beside themselves with indg-
nation, they came III person at once, and sent
their wives to protest And, small and mean
though she knew the satisfaction was, Miss
Sophia was never better pleased in her life
than when She told them the thing was done
and couldn't be helped, and that the child was
hers-no thanks to them or any man alive.
As for Susan, personally, she felt that al
though de Holdjae the boy was Miss Sophia's
yet de tdctO lie was hers And if he had been
hers and she had palmed him of on her mis-
tress, making her own flesh and blood thus
the heir to houses and lands, her satisfaction,
if more criminal, could not have been more
complete.
well well :" said the doctor as he came
in that night, and found Miss Sophia Groom
ing over her child, while Susan was busy in
the kitchen. isn't this new departure for
a bundle of nerves, that IS only hanging by
the eyelid. and is sure there is nothing to
live for after forty?'"
Il have something to live for now" cried
Miss Sophia. Something to wake up to, to
look forward to, always, all day and to-mor-
row. have found it out at last. Why didn't
you tell me of it before: 1t should be in
your pharmacopocia. And do you know, doc
tor | forgot all about taking my drops to-
day: | don't know when I've done such
thing before. | never once thought of my
aches and ails, I've been SO busy. l haven't
had any palpitation TO speak of, my nerves
haven't twitched aud I'm SO dead tired that
I'm sure l shall sleep without any bromides.
But want you to look in all the same every
day, doctor" said Miss Sophia, as he went
of, laughing; for if I'm not sick, the baby
may be :"
And then, as Miss Sophia sat there all
alone with her baby, rocking to and fro in
the freight dusk such pleasant pictures be-
gan to glide before her, where once only
gloom had becn-the surprise when Johnny's
first tooth should CRATE on her thimble, the
rapture over his first wet and cropping kiss
(other babies wet and cropping kisses she had
known, but they had not been the kisses of
her baby as this would be- the triumph of
his first word, his first step alone the sight
that it would be when she had him, a winter
dove in her arms, as she tossed their break
fast to the flock of flashing and tumbling
white pigeons; when she saw him giving
bits of biscuit from his little fingers to the
great Shanghai monster, as tall as he. The
coming on of winter, now, as she thought of
| it, no longer seemed to her like descent into
the Valley of the Shadow of Death Rather
was it an ascent into the region of the blessed
messengers, "A region peopled by the angels
of Johnny's sled and Johnny's skates and
Johnny's snowman and there would always
be somebody to expect in this happy region
somebody flying III and out somebody shout
ing before you could see his red comforter
round the corner-and that somebody little
Johnny. She already knew the silver voice
in which he would repeat The Better Land"
and could See him kneeling in his little white
night-gow with folded hands, over his
Now lay me down to sleep" All the up
roar Johnny might make would be music
and if he set things "by the ears" Susan
would ask nothing better than to set them
''to rights" again. BY and by, too, the young
cousins would be coming, and as Johnny's
cousins they had some charms in Miss So
phia's eyes which they did not possess in
themselves while Thanksgiving gobblers
began to strut before her, dropping their
drapery of gorgeous pumes, and untold
Christmases, to shake all their stockings in
her face. What thing it is to have a child
in the house when We are young" exclaim-
ed Miss Sophia. what a thing it will be
when l am old and go leaning on his strong
arm up the broad aisle of the church, on
Sundays, TO the old McAllister pew" And
she thought of Miss Brownell and her mon
key with an neffable contempt, which soon
passed into pity however, such pity that
she began to cherish some uniformed idea of
letting Johnny go over and play at Miss
Brownelrs, possibly with the mOnkey-some
! Saturday afternoon, when he was old enough
to be trusted to the care of person SO igno-
rant of children as Miss Brownell. "Susan !"
! Miss Sophia cried MS the poor and happy lit
| tie godmother brought in an armful of wood
for the hearth, and, having laid it down, pro-
| ceeded take lingering look inside the lit
tie blanket that covered the head lying over
Miss Sopha's shoulder-''Susan, this New
Years day that has brought Johnny to you
and me is not to be counted on our tally, but
of of it; not as one more, but one less. We
shall be getting younger now instead of older,
! with every year that comes. For those that
have children" said Miss Sophia, proudly,
Give their youth over again in them and
need never grow old. "-IndepeRdent.
! IIhe Fireside.
| AT nightfall, by the hrelghts cheer,
NJ ia % tggla