oubtfully at the money which Pa laid mutely down.

"I s'pose that part was only a joke," he said.

"Not a bit of it," said Robert Lawson. "All the money won't bee too much
to pay the debts. There's a doctor's bill, and this will just about pay
it."

Pa Sloane drove back home, with the sorrel mare still unshod, the baby,
and the baby's meager bundle of clothes. The baby did not trouble him
much; it had become well used to strangers in the past two months, and
promptly fell asleep on his arm; but Pa Sloane did not enjoy that drive;
at the end of it; he mentally saw Ma Sloane.

Ma was there, too, waiting for him on the back door-step as he drove
into the yard at sunset. Her face, when she saw the baby, expressed the
last degree of amazement.

"Pa Sloane," she demanded, "whose is that young one, and there did you
get it?"

"I--I--bought it at the auction, Ma," said Pa feebly. Then he waited for
the explosion. None came. This last exploit of Pa's was too much for Ma.

With a gasp she snatched the baby from Pa's arms, and ordered him to go
out and put the mare in. When Pa returned to the kitchen Ma had set the
baby on the sofa, fenced him around with chairs so that he couldn't fall
off and given him a molassed cooky.

"Now, Pa Sloane, you can explain," she said.

Pa explained. Ma listened in grim silence until he had finished. Then
she said sternly:

"Do you reckon we're going to keep this baby?"

"I--I--dunno," said Pa. And he didn't.

"Well, we're NOT. I brought up one boy and that's enough. I don't
calculate to be pestered with any more. I never was much struck on
children _as_ children, anyhow. You say that Mary Garland had a brother
out in Mantioba? Well, we shall just write to him and tell him he's got
to look out for his nephew."

"But how can you do that, Ma, when nobody knows his address?" objected
Pa, with a wistful look at that delicious, laughing baby.

"I'll find out his address if I have to advertise in the papers for
him," retorted Ma. "As for you, Pa Sloane, you're not fit to be out of a
lunatic asylum. The next auction you'll be buying a wife, I s'pose?"

Pa, quite crushed by Ma's sarcasm, pulled his chair in to supper. Ma
picked up the baby and sat down at the head of the table. Little Teddy
laughed and pinched her face--Ma's face! Ma looked very grim, but she
fed him his supper as skilfully as if it had not been thirty years
since she had done such a thing. But then, the woman who once lea