Part 18 (2/2)

To the bathing of the child Miss Madigan gave her personal attention, while Kate waited for the tub, into which it was her nightly task to coax Frances. Then, when her charge was ready for bed, the devoted aunt of other children sat rocking the borrowed baby softly till he fell asleep. The whole household hushed that night when Baby Fauntleroy Forrest's eyelids fell. An indignant lot of young Madigans were hustled off to bed that his slumbers might not be disturbed; and yet the moment Miss Madigan laid him, with infinite care and a sentimental smile, in her own bed, his eyes flew open, like the disordered orbs of a wax doll that has forgotten it was made to open its eyes when in a vertical position and keep them shut when placed horizontally. He saw a strange face bending over him, and he howled with terror.

Miss Madigan tried to comfort him, babbling fondest baby-talk in vain.

”I yant to go home!” wailed Aunt Anne's Fauntleroy.

Why, no; he didn't want to go home, the lady to whom he had been loaned a.s.sured him. Mama was asleep and daddy was asleep and Bombey was asleep and the p.u.s.s.y was--

”I yant to go home!” bellowed the borrowed baby.

But how could he go home? the lady, a bit impatiently, demanded. Wasn't he all undressed? Did he want to go through the streets all undressed--fie, fie, for shame!

”I yant to go home!” screamed Fauntleroy Forrest.

”Sissy--Irene--some one come here and amuse this child!” called Aunt Anne, at her wits' end. Fauntleroy was black in the face from holding his breath, and his borrower was nervously exhausted by the tension of a day spent in attendance upon the lovely child.

A troop of nightgowned Madigans came joyously in. For the edification of Fauntleroy, sitting up wide-eyed now in Aunt Anne's big bed, the tears still on his cheeks, the Madigans made monkeys of themselves till he dropped off asleep at last, when they were dismissed by a frazzled maiden lady, who was left looking at the small thing lying in her bed as at some strange animal whose waking she dreaded.

In the middle of the night and again toward morning the Madigans heard Fauntleroy's frightened scream, and chuckled like the depraved young things they were. But when Francis Madigan got up and, candle in hand, his queer nightcap tumbling over his left eye, and his gaunt shadow covering the wall and wavering over the ceiling, came to demand of Miss Madigan what in thousand devils was the matter, the borrowed baby was thrown into convulsions; while Don, the big Newfoundland, awakened by the din, burst into hoa.r.s.e barks that the mountains echoed and reechoed.

After this it seemed best to Aunt Anne to sit up in bed for the rest of the night, making shadow-pictures on the wall for Fauntleroy.

Miss Madigan's high color had faded the next morning. Accustomed to unbroken sleep, she had not rested half an hour the whole night. It seemed that Fauntleroy Forrest was in the habit of lying across his bed instead of along it, and he had so terrorized the poor lady that she had not dared to move him, when he did fall asleep toward morning and she felt his toes digging into her ribs, lest he wake.

”Hurry with your breakfast, Sissy,” she said faintly, sipping her tea, ”so that you can take him home before school.”

”Don't yant to go home!” whimpered the baby, whom the morning light and the presence of many small Madigans had rea.s.sured.

”He could stay and play with Frank, couldn't he, Aunt Anne?” suggested Sissy, sweetly.

Miss Madigan's look spoke volumes.

”Yes, yes,” cried Fauntleroy. ”Don't yant to go home!”

His papa would be lonesome, Miss Madigan told him, archly; and his mama would be lonesome, and Bombey--

”Don't yant to go home!” wept the baby.

”There! There!... Take him, Frank, into my room and amuse him--anything, only don't let him cry!” exclaimed Miss Madigan. ”I'm going into Kate's room to lie down. I'm exhausted and--”

”Did Fauntleroy disturb you, Aunt Anne?” asked Kate, sympathetically.

But Miss Madigan hurried away. She was so unnerved she feared that she might weep. But, after nearly half an hour's trying, she found she was too tired to sleep, after all, and rising wearily, she went back to her room for the book she had been reading.

The sight that met her eyes, as she opened the door, completed her undoing. There was Fauntleroy, with an uncomprehending grin on his cherubic face, pinching each separate leaf of her cherished sensitive-plant. Evidently the borrowed baby did not exactly understand the desperately funny quality of the act, but he knew it must be the funniest thing in the world, for the Madigans were writhing grotesquely in the unbounded merriment it caused.

With a cry, Miss Madigan flew forward and sharply slapped the destructive baby hands.

”I yant to go home!” screamed Fauntleroy.

”Yes; and I want you to go, too,” Miss Madigan declared, incensed. ”Get his things, Sissy, this minute.”

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