ttle lamb. When poor
pale-faced Dinky-Dunk bent over the bed I asked him if it had a receding
chin, or if it had a nose like Olie's. And he said it had neither, that
it was a king of a boy and could holler like a good one.

Then I told Dinky-Dunk what had been in my secret soul, for so many
months. Uncle Carlton had a receding chin, a boneless, dew-lappy sort
of chin I'd always hated, and I'd been afraid it might kind of
skip-and-carry one and fasten itself on my innocent offspring. Then,
later on, I'd been afraid of Olie's frozen nose, with the split down the
center. And all the while I kept remembering what the Morleys' old
colored nurse had said to me when I was a schoolgirl, a girl of only
seventeen, spending that first vacation of mine in Virginia: "Lawdy,
chile, yuh ain't no bigger'n a minit! Don't yuh nebber hab no baby,
chile!"

Isn't it funny how those foolish old things stick in a woman's memory?
For I've had my baby and I'm still alive, and although I sometimes
wanted a girl, Dinky-Dunk is so ridiculously proud and happy seeing it's
a boy that I don't much care. But I'm going to get well and strong in a
few more days, and here against my breast I'm holding the God-love-itest
little lump of pulsing manhood, the darlingest, solemnest, placidest,
pinkest hope of the white race that ever made life full and perfect for
a foolish mother.

The doctor who finally got here--when both Olga and Mrs. Dixon agreed
that he couldn't possibly do a bit of good--announced that I had come
through it all like the true Prairie Woman that I was. Then he somewhat
pompously and redundantly explained that I was a highly organized
individual, "a bit high-strung," as Mrs. Dixon put it. I smiled into the
pillow when he turned to my anxious-eyed Dinky-Dunk and condoningly
enlarged on the fact that there was nothing abnormal about a woman like
me being--well, rather abnormal as to temper and nerves during the last
few months. But Dinky-Dunk cut him short.

"On the contrary, sir; she's been wonderful, simply wonderful!"
Dinky-Dunk stoutly declared. Then he reached for my hand under the
coverlet. "She's been an angel!"

I squeezed the hand that held mine. Then I looked at the doctor, who had
turned away to give some orders to Olga.

"Doctor," I quite as stoutly declared, "I've been a perfect devil, and
this dear old liar knows it!" But our doctor was too busy to pay much
attention to what I was saying. He merely murmured that it was