e of that baby she never once boiled a
nipple! Never once!"

George blinked his eyes in puzzled thought. "Do you got to boil 'em?"

For a moment Rosie glared unspeakable things. Then she answered with
crushing emphasis: "You certainly do!"

George moved uneasily. "No hard feelings, Rosie. I was just askin'."

Rosie was magnanimous. "I'm not blaming you, Jarge. You're a man and not
supposed to understand about sterilizing. But I do say it's disgraceful
in a mother of eight.... Why, do you know what ma was feeding Geraldine
when I took hold of her? Nothing but that old-fashioned baby-food that
nobody but ignur'nt people use now. It's the first thing they hand out
to you at the drug-store, if you don't know the difference. It makes
babies fat but it don't give them one bit of strength, and people like
ma suppose if a baby's fat, of course, it's all right. Oh, such
ignur'nce!" Rosie sighed wearily and cast long-suffering eyes to heaven.

Balancing a conciliatory knife on his finger, George appealed to her as
man to man: "Now, Rosie, see here: I'm not saying that you don't know
all about babies, 'cause I think you do. I know the way you been finding
out things at the Little Mothers' Class and I know the way you study
that book. But facts is facts, Rosie, and after all, your ma has raised
five kids out of eight, and that ain't so bad."

"Go on." Rosie looked at him challengingly.

George had no more to say.

Rosie had. "Jarge Riley, you know as much about babies as a rabbit!
Don't you know that Geraldine is a bottle-baby?"

An expression of helpless wonderment spread over George's face. "Why,
Rosie, ain't they all bottle-babies? Seems to me I always seen 'em give
bottles to all of 'em."

"All of them bottle-babies! Jarge, you're more ignur'nt than I supposed.
Why, every last baby my mother's had except Geraldine has been a
breast-baby!"

The pink of an unexpected embarrassment mounted to George's shiny
cheekbones.

Rosie surveyed him critically. "I suppose, now that you come to think
about it, it seems to you they must all be breast-babies, too. Tell me,
ain't that so?"

"Search me if it ain't!" George spoke in candid bewilderment.

"That just shows how much you know and yet you're willing to sit there
and argue with me. Now I suppose you think it takes as much brains to
raise a breast-baby as a bottle-baby." There was a question in Rosie's
tone but George, breathing hard, had no opinion to hazard. After a
m