So George, greatly fearful but nevertheless eager, took off his wet coat and hung it on the stair rail out in the hall and then sat down and took the baby gingerly into his arms. It seemed to him a daring thing for him to handle that frail bit of humanity.
Dale watched him furtively as she went about washing the bottle and heating the milk, filling the bottle with her unaccustomed hands. How kind the young man was as he looked down at the little protesting face. His eyes were tender, and there were gentle lines around his mouth that made her feel he was a man one could trust. But the baby had set up a fierce wail once more with the cessation of the hot water.
"He wants more water," said Dale. "Give him a few drops at a time with the spoon until the milk is ready." And she put the glass and spoon on a chair beside him.
So George fed the baby hot water and sugar, and was filled with delight when he swallowed it.
"Why, the little beggar likes it!" he exclaimed, and Dale smiled assent.
They were like two children when the bottle was finally ready and Dale took the baby again to feed him. They hung over that meal, both of them, asked if they were hungry themselves, and they laughed aloud as the baby seized the nipple in his hungry lips and went to work, smacking and choking and gurgling over the first few mouthfuls.
"Why, the little beggar!" said George grinning. "That was what he wanted! Look out there, you little pig! Don't get your feet in the trough! That bottle isn't going to run away. There's more where that came from!"
The baby settled down finally to long pulls and little grunts of satisfaction rolling his eyes with ecstasy, and George and Dale, their heads close together watching him were no less happy.
The delicate blue-veined lids began to droop before the bottle was quite finished, and they enjoyed watching the process of going to sleep. They hadn't known before how interesting a baby was. They began to hope just a little that they had really saved the baby's life, although it seemed almost incredible that so young a child could survive such exposure.
But George saw more than the baby as he sat there watching. He saw again the Madonna look in Dale's eyes when she lifted them to give a whispered direction about getting the bed ready for her to lay the baby down. He saw the lovely droop of her head over the baby, the sweet curve of her shoulders, the little brown curl at the nape of her white neck, and he had a foolish desire to stoop and kiss it, although he'd never felt that way about any girl in his life before.
He turned away half ashamedly and let his cheeks go hot in the shadowed room. Dale's small electric bulb could not compete with the darkness of the whole room very successfully, and the oil stove only helped out a tiny bit. But then he turned back, not willing to miss the lovely sight of her sitting there with bent head holding the bottle to the baby's lips, his little fuzzy head nestled in the hollow of her arm.
"Why, the little beggar has hair!" he exclaimed suddenly as if it were a great discovery. "Yellow hair. I guess he was so filthy it didn't show before the bath!"
He watched the girl and the baby wistfully, almost hungrily.
"Yes, and it's curly, too!" murmured Dale happily. Then with sudden dread in her voice: "Did you call the police?"
"No," said George. "I thought it was more important to get him warmed and fed first. He couldn't go anywhere on a night like this anyway. Do you think I ought to call them tonight?"
"I don't see why morning won't do," said Dale. "Anybody who left him here likely knows where he is."
"He might be stolen, of course," hazarded George anxiously. "I wouldn't like to think anybody was worrying about him. Poor little chipmunk!"
"I don't think they are," said Dale thoughtfully. "He looks too undernourished to belong to anybody who would worry about him. Thought maybe that's the reason they had to give him up. But if he was stolen it would have been some time ago. Nobody would steal a poor child like that. He certainly was not attired in the garments of the rich."
"I should say not!" said George with satisfaction. Then after a pause, "He looks too awfully young to be stolen. People don't steal babies that young as a rule. It's too risky. They can't get their money out of the transaction. The kid might die on them, and they wouldn't realize it soon enough."
"Yes, I guess you're right," said Dale.
They were silent for a little, standing there beside the bed watching the child sleep.
"Then, you know," said George after a minute, "his mother might have been taken sick and just slipped him in this doorway because she couldn't navigate any longer. It was bitter cold outside, and I seem to remember hearing an ambulance. Saw them pick up somebody before I came in. I thought then it was some drunk, but it might have been a woman."
"Oh!" exclaimed Dale pitifully. "Then perhaps you ought to telephone tonight. We might be able to do something for the mother if we could find her!"
"I hadn't thought of that!" said George. "But I'd hate like the dickens to have the little sucker taken to the orphanage or the poor farm. I suppose that's what the police would do with him. And he oughtn't to go out in this storm."
"Oh!" said Dale. "The poor little darling!" Her eyes filled with sudden yearning. "How I wish I had a home!"
"Here, too!" said George fervently, his eyes devouring the picture Dale made as she bent over and tucked the hot-water bottle under the blanket close beside her. "He's not so blue as he was. I'd like to see the little sucker have a chance after he's weathered all this. But I suppose I ought to do something about him. What time do you have to leave in the morning?"
A sudden gray look swept over Dale's face.
"I don't!" she said in a sad little voice.
"You don't?" exclaimed George in glad surprise. "You mean you could look after him for a little while in the morning till I can rustle around and do something about it? Aren't you--employed?"
"Not anymore," said Dale, looking up with a brave little smile. "The company I was working for burned down last night."
"Say, now, that's tough luck!" said George sympathetically. "That must have been the fire I was covering."
"Yes, I suppose it was," said Dale with downcast eyes. "I was feeling pretty badly about it till you brought in this dear baby, who was so much worse off than I was. But I guess we'll weather it. The worst of it is there isn't any chance to get a new job until after Christmas now anyway, so I can easily look after the baby tomorrow. I'd be so glad to keep the baby myself if I had any home, or money enough to make one for him without having to leave him to go to work. But I can easily look after the baby tomorrow."
"Good!" said George brightening. "That'll be a help. Can you beat that to have things work out and fit in so neatly? But say, I've just got a raise. A big one! Been hoping for it a long time now and had given up expecting it. And now it's come, I haven't a soul in the world to spend it on. So if you don't get something good right away, you'll accept a loan from me for a while till things brighten up for you. There's no need in the world for you to get worried. Take it easy till you can really better yourself. That's all right. You helped me out, and now I'll help you out."
"Oh, I couldn't possibly do that," said Dale firmly. "I couldn't, you know. But you are very kind."
"Now look here--" began George eagerly, "in a way this is my baby. I found him; you might let me pay for his care--"
"Did I understand you to say it was your baby, Mr. Rand?" challenged the hard voice of Mrs. Beck from the doorway.
Chapter 8
The two young people swung around startled, for even though the door had been wide open into the hall they had not heard the approach of their landlady. Her rubber-shod feet had acquired a habit of silence. She liked to come upon her roomers unawares. There she stood in the doorway and fixed them with a steely glance.
"Gosh!" said George, under his breath.
Then the woman spoke:
"Miss Hathaway, I am surprised at you, letting a man come into your room! And at this time of night! I thought you were respectable! I remember mentioning that to you, that I
had always had a respectable class of roomers. This house has always had a good name. If I think there is any doubt about people I always ask for recommendations. And, Mr. Rand, I wouldn't have thought it of you! You was always a nice, quiet young man! But I suppose men are all alike, they'll go anywhere when a girl has a 'come-hither' in her eye. And now after what I've just heard you say! My! I never would have thought it! You never can tell about anybody! As for this girl! Miss Hathaway, you can get right out! It was probably all your fault. I can't have any young woman of questionable character in my house. I've always kept a respectable establishment. I ought to have sent you away long ago. I've been worried ever since I found out how you tore that bag on purpose and flung all those oranges out on the sidewalk right in front of him to make him pick them up for you and carry them upstairs."
She turned to Rand.
"She just did that, of course, to get acquainted with you. And now see what it's led to! But this settles the matter. I can't have a girl like that around, not a girl that lets strange men come into her room. It isn't decent!"
Dale gasped at the appalling words.
"Mrs. Beck," she said in a clear voice, "you can't talk that way! Neither Mr. Rand nor I had one thought of ourselves or of what room we were in. We were trying to save that little baby's life. It was starving and freezing and nothing else was of any importance then."
"Well, you'll find it is of importance now," said the furious woman grimly. "You've got me to reckon with. I guess you knew good and well where you were, too! You can't pull the wool over my eyes! And as for you, Mr. Rand, men always know what they're doing, and if he hadn't he was told. Gramma says she advised him to put the baby on the doorstep and call the police! That's what he should have done of course, instead of making it an excuse to go and hob-nob in a girl's room. But, of course--if it's his baby, that explains--"
Rand was white with fury now. He strode forward and seized the irate Beck's arm in a firm grip.
"Look here!" he roared. "You old white sepulcher, you! You can't get away with saying things like that. I never saw nor even heard of that baby till I fell over it in your vestibule. It was practically naked, with snow blowing in over it, and it was the most pitiful sight I ever saw, shivering like a leaf and giving hoarse, weak little cries. I don't know who put it in your house and I don't care. I only know it would have been murder to leave it there. Your tenderhearted grandmother wouldn't do a thing to help me, and I couldn't find anybody else at home, so I saw a light in the crack under this door and I asked Miss Hathaway to help me. Now, if you dare to say a word against her you've got me to deal with, see?"
"Leave me alone, young man!" said the invincible Mrs. Beck, glaring at George and pulling away from his firm grip. "If you don't take your hand off me this instant, I'll have you arrested for assault! And as for your sob story, there must have been some reason why that brat was left in this house instead of some other! If you expect me to believe your story, let's see you do something about it. If that ain't your baby take it down ta the p'lice station this minute! I don't harbor any foundling brats in my respectable home, not even overnight! Go!" And she pointed dramatically toward the blanketed baby sleeping sweetly on Dale's pillow.
"On a night like this, at an hour like this?" blazed Rand contemptuously. "You old hypocrite!"
"Yes, on a night like this!" mimicked the hard old voice. "Go!"
"Not on your life!" said Rand firmly. "We'll get out in the morning and no sooner! I can't answer for Miss Hathaway, but I rather think she won't care to stay here any longer after the insulting things you've said to her!"
"Certainly not!" said Dale quietly, giving George a grateful look. She suddenly felt a thrill of thankfulness as she realized the sympathy and understanding that seemed to have sprung up between herself and this young man with the tender eyes and the trustworthy mouth.
"Oh no, of course no!" mocked the angry woman looking contemptuously at Dale. "I don't suppose you'd care to stay after he left!"
Dale's face flamed, but she spoke calmly: "No, I shouldn't, Mrs. Beck. I've never addressed more than half a dozen sentences to Mr. Rand before tonight, nor he to me. We've barely nodded as we passed each other on the stairs occasionally, but he seems to be the only honorable person in the house, and I certainly would not want to remain here after he was gone. If you'll wait just a minute, Mrs. Beck, I'll give you that fifty cents you paid for my laundry this morning while I was away."
Mrs. Beck received the money grimly, looked down at the fifty-cent piece doubtfully, then glanced toward the bed where the sleeping baby lay.
"Two in a room is extra!" she announced vindictively. "A dollar a night for transients!"
Indignantly Dale took out a dollar from her worn little purse, and was about to give it to Mrs. Beck, but a hand intervened.
"That'll be on the baby, Mrs. Beck!" said George Rand with flashing eyes. "Try and collect!"
The old woman gave him a vengeful look and met one from the young man that made her quail. Presently without another word she turned and stamped down the stairs, and the two people were left alone with the baby.
"I'm sorry!" said Rand penitently when they heard the click of the lock in the downstairs door. "I had no idea what I was getting you into. I didn't know that there were people in the world so inhuman!"
Dale held her head high, and there was almost a smile on her lips.
"I'm glad!" she said with a glint of pride in her eye. "You were wonderful!"
Rand looked at her in wonder. What a girl she was! Somehow he had a desire to put his arms about her and comfort her, but he only said gently: "You ought to go to bed! You're getting all blue under the eyes like the baby!"
Dale laughed softly. She wanted to cry, but she put on a brave front and laughed.
"Oh, I'm all right," she said, taking a deep breath. "Only I do wish there was some way to keep that baby! He's such a darling, and I'm afraid somebody else won't care and will let him die. I hate to think of his going to an institution. Institutions are all right, I suppose, only he seems something special. He's very sweet, even sick and thin the way he is. I haven't anybody in the world, and it's likely he hasn't, either. I'd like to have him if I had a way to keep him. It seems a pity there isn't a way."
"Well, I'm in the same boat myself. I haven't anybody in the world anymore. I'm all alone!"
Rand signed wistfully.
"He certainly is a cute little beggar," he went on. "I wish--" He hesitated and then abruptly stepped to the door.
"Well, good night. You get some sleep. Call me if you need me. There may be a solution in the morning, who knows?"
He stamped noisily up the stairs to the third-story front and slammed his door, locking it with a decided rattle of the key.
Dale smiled to herself as she closed her own with a bit of a slam, and an equal clattering of her key. She felt morally certain a listening ear was down the hall.
It was getting on toward morning before the dawn had really come, that she heard a soft tapping of fingertips on her door, though she had heard no step.
She slipped softly from the bed, drew her robe about her closer, and opened the door.
There stood Rand under the weak bulb that illumined that end of the hall. He looked anxiously at her, his rumpled hair giving him an endearing boyish look.
"Are you all right?" he whispered. "I thought I heard the little chap cry. I'll bet you haven't slept a wink all night!"
Dale smiled.
"Well, I didn't sleep much, but I'm all right. I'm fine. I had the baby on my mind, you see. But I loved it. He was as good as gold."
"Well, he better be!" growled Rand tenderly. "All you've done for him! Can't I take him now and let you get some sleep?"
Dale giggled softly.
"He's sound asleep and mustn't be disturbed," she whispered. "But you don't look as if you'd slept a wink yourself," she challenged.
Rand grinned.
"I had you on my mind," he countered. "You were good as gold, b
ut I had to worry about you."
Their eyes met and something flashed between them, something deep and sweet and tender.
Dale's eyes lit with a sudden gladness. She drooped their fringes to hide her soul that came up to look out, and her delicate face grew suddenly rosy with embarrassment.
He gave her a lonely smile with an admonition to go back to bed, and was gone, as silently as he had come.
It was in the rose and gray of a new day that the baby stirred from its deep sleep and began to whimper, turning its little fuzzy head from side to side and vainly striving to extract nourishment from the blanket that enveloped it.
Dale came awake startled. She had been crouched uncomfortably by the baby's side on the narrow bed, and now she heard the hoarseness in his small outcry. Was he going to have croup or something terrible? Of course, it was to be quite expected after the exposure he had been through. She put out an anxious hand and touched his forehead. It was hot and dry and his thin little cheeks were flushed. Oh, if he had a fever how would that affect his being moved today? For she couldn't think of staying in that house with a sick baby. Mrs. Beck would make it intolerable.
With anxiety in her heart she went about warming the bottle and got the baby as comfortable as she could, glad that he dropped off to sleep again while he was feeding. Then she tiptoed around the room gathering up her things. She must be packed and ready for whatever came.
There wasn't much to pack, of course. She hadn't a very large wardrobe, and many of her summer things were laid neatly in her trunk already, to be out of the way.
She had been burning the oil stove all night to keep the room tolerably warm for the baby, and now she began to realize that the oil would soon be spent and the stove would go out. She wouldn't dare go down and ask for more oil. If she did Mrs. Beck would not give it to her, she was sure, even if she offered to pay more than the regular price for it.
She cast an anxious glance at the flame to see if it was as bright as usual, and felt the pan of water on the top. The water was pretty hot so she took the precaution to fill the hot water bottle, which was now only lukewarm after the long night of service. Then she wrapped the bottle with thick covers to save its heat, and laid the bundle close to the baby.