want any
old Uncle to give me away."

"What is it?" said the grocery man, as he took a stool and sat out
by the front door beside the boy who was trying to eat a box of red
raspberries on the sly.

"Well Uncle Ezra and me bribed the nurse girl to dress the baby up one
evening in some old, dirty baby clothes, belonging to our wash woman's
baby, and we put it in a basket and placed the basket on the front door
step, and put a note in the basket and addressed it to Pa. We had
the nurse girl stay out in front, by the basement stairs, so the baby
couldn't get away and she rung the bell and got behind something. Ma and
Pa, and Uncle Ezra and me were in the back parlor when the bell rung,
and Ma told me to go to the door, and I brought in the basket, and set
it down, and told Pa there was a note in it for him. Ma, she came up
and looked at the note as Pa tore it open, and Uncle Ezra looked in the
basket and sighed. Pa read part of the note and stopped and turned pale,
and sat down then Ma read some of it, and she didn't feel very well,
and she leaned against the piano and grated her teeth. The note was in a
girl's hand writing, and was like this:

"Old Bald Headed Pet:--

"You will have to take care of your child, because I cannot.
Bring it up tenderly, and don't, for heaven's sake, send it
to the Foundling Asylum. I shall go drown myself.

"Your loving,

"Almira."

"What did your Ma say?" said the grocery man, becoming interested.

"O, Ma played her part well. Uncle Ezra had told her the joke, and she
said 'retch,' to Pa, just as the actresses do on the stage, and put her
handkerchief to her eyes. Pa said it was 'false,' and Uncle Ezra said,
'O, brother, that I should live to see this day,' and I said, as I
looked in the basket, 'Pa, it looks just like you, and I'll leave it to
Ma.' That was too much, and Pa got mad in a minute. He always gets mad
at me. But he went up and looked in the basket, and he said it was some
Dutch baby, and was evidently from the lower strata of society, and the
unnatural mother wanted to get rid of it, and he said he didn't know any
'Almira' at all. When he called it a dutch baby, and called attention to
its irregular features, that made Ma mad, and she took it up out of the
basket and told Pa it was a perfect picture of him, and tried to put it
in Pa's arms, but he wouldn't have it, and said he would call the police
and have it taken to the poor house. Uncl