doesn't know that I nearly drowned
you that first morning when Susan wasn't there and I let you slip right
out of my hands into the water. Why will you be so slippery? No, I
don't like you and I never will but for all that I'm going to make a
decent, upstanding infant of you. You are going to get as fat as a
self-respecting child should be, for one thing. I am not going to have
people saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe's is'
as old Mrs. Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday. If I can't
love you I mean to be proud of you at least."

CHAPTER IX

DOC HAS A MISADVENTURE

"The war will not be over before next spring now," said Dr. Blythe,
when it became apparent that the long battle of the Aisne had resulted
in a stalemate.

Rilla was murmuring "knit four, purl one" under her breath, and rocking
the baby's cradle with one foot. Morgan disapproved of cradles for
babies but Susan did not, and it was worth while to make some slight
sacrifice of principle to keep Susan in good humour. She laid down her
knitting for a moment and said, "Oh, how can we bear it so long?"--then
picked up her sock and went on. The Rilla of two months before would
have rushed off to Rainbow Valley and cried.

Miss Oliver sighed and Mrs. Blythe clasped her hands for a moment. Then
Susan said briskly, "Well, we must just gird up our loins and pitch in.
Business as usual is England's motto, they tell me, Mrs. Dr. dear, and
I have taken it for mine, not thinking I could easily find a better. I
shall make the same kind of pudding today I always make on Saturday. It
is a good deal of trouble to make, and that is well, for it will employ
my thoughts. I will remember that Kitchener is at the helm and Joffer
is doing very well for a Frenchman. I shall get that box of cake off to
little Jem and finish that pair of socks today likewise. A sock a day
is my allowance. Old Mrs. Albert Mead of Harbour Head manages a pair
and a half a day but she has nothing to do but knit. You know, Mrs. Dr.
dear, she has been bed-rid for years and she has been worrying terrible
because she was no good to anybody and a dreadful expense, and yet
could not die and be out of the way. And now they tell me she is quite
chirked up and resigned to living because there is something she can
do, and she knits for the soldiers from daylight to dark. Even Cousin
Sophia has taken to knitting, Mrs. Dr. dear, and it is a good thing,
for she cannot think of q