ldren had looked at
the baby. They had turned their heads away deliberately, and had
responded in gutteral affirmatives when they were asked if it were not
a pretty baby. But Jimmy had escaped that humiliation, and since then
he had avoided all snares set to lure him to his mother's bed-side. He
sat there in the barn, fuming as he recalled what he had heard while
Annie was in his mother's room early that morning.

[Illustration: _Jimmy heard Mrs. Jones tell his little sister Annie
that morning that she was no longer the baby_.]

"See little sister's hands. Oh, what pretty hands!" Jimmy had
reasoned, and probably correctly, that the pause was filled by the
child's big-eyed astonishment. Mrs. Jones continued,--

"Weenty teenty little feets! See little sister's toeses. What little
bitsey toeses. Baby touch little sister's toeses."

Jimmy had chafed while he listened; but now that the scene came to him
after reflection, he saw how inhuman a thing it was to dupe the child
into an affection for her inevitable enemy.

"Does baby love little sister?" continued the voice. "Love nice,
pretty little sister! Sweet little sister! Zhere! Zhere! Zhat's right;
love little sister!" As he toyed with a wisp of hay, Jimmy Sears's
blood froze in his veins at the recollection that his own mother had
lent her countenance to this baseness. He knew, and he knew that his
mother knew, that the baby would take all the care due to his toddling
sister. He saw, from the elevation of the hay-cock on which he and
the little one sat, that her throat had been cut in a cowardly manner
while she smiled. It seemed deliberately cruel. A lump of pity for the
child filled his throat. Still, in his heart, he forgave his mother
for her part in the duplicity. He did not feel for her the contempt he
felt for Henry Sears, his father; for the boy knew that Henry Sears
was actually proud of the family's ignominy. Jimmy blushed at the
picture in his mind of his father strutting around town, with his vest
pockets full of cigars, and his thumbs in the armpits, bragging of the
occurrence that filled the boy with shame. Jimmy felt that secretly
his mother did not consider the baby's arrival an occasion for
vainglory. He felt that his mother was merely putting a good face upon
the misfortune. These reflections kept Jimmy quiet for ten minutes.

[Illustration: _His father strutting around town ... bragging of the
occurrence that filled the boy with shame_.]

At the