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in a vain effort to soothe him, and flinging her off, he made
straight for the bed.
"Ah," he cried, gazing with dilated nostrils at the trembling
object beneath the covers, "there you are, mum," and he shook his
fist above what he believed to be the cowardly Mrs. Hardy. "
'Tis well ye may cover up your head," said he, "for shame on yez!
Me wife may take in washing, but when I comes home at night I
wants me kids, and I'll be after havin' 'em too. Where ar'
they?" he demanded. Then getting no response from the agitated
covers, he glanced wildly about the room. "Glory be to God!" he
exclaimed as his eyes fell on the crib; but he stopped short in
astonishment, when upon peering into it, he found not one, or
two, but three "barren."
"They're child stalers, that's what they are," he declared to
Maggie, as he snatched Bridget and Norah to his no doubt
comforting breast. "Me little Biddy," he crooned over his much
coveted possession. "Me little Norah," he added fondly, looking
down at his second. The thought of his narrow escape from losing
these irreplaceable treasures rekindled his wrath. Again he
strode toward the bed and looked down at the now semi-quiet
comforter.
"The black heart of ye, mum," he roared, then ordering Maggie to
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give back "every penny of that shameless creetur's money" he
turned toward the door.
So intense had been O'Flarety's excitement and so engrossed was
he in his denunciation that he had failed to see the wild-eyed
Italian woman rushing toward him from the opposite door.
"You, you!" cried the frenzied woman and, to O'Flarety's
astonishment, she laid two strong hands upon his arm and drew him
round until he faced her. "Where are you going with my baby?"
she asked, then peering into the face of the infant nearest to
her, she uttered a disappointed moan. " 'Tis not my baby!" she
cried. She scanned the face of the second infant--again she
moaned.
Having begun to identify this hysterical creature as the possible
mother of the third infant, O'Flarety jerked his head in the
direction of the cradle.
"I guess you'll find what you're lookin' for in there," he said.
Then bidding Maggie to "git along out o' this" and shrugging his
shoulders to convey his contempt for the fugitive beneath the
coverlet, he swept quickly from the room.
Clasping her long-sought darling to her heart and weeping with
delight, the Italian mother was about to follow O'Flarety through
the door when Zoie staggered into the room, weak and exhausted.
"You, you!" called the indignant Zoie to the departing mother.
"How dare you lock my husband in the bathroom?" She pointed to
the key, which the woman still unconsciously clasped in her hand.
"Give me that key," she demanded, "give it to me this instant."
"Take your horrid old key," said the mother, and she threw it on
the floor. "If you ever try to get my baby again, I'll lock your
husband in JAIL," and murmuring excited maledictions in her
native tongue, she took her welcome departure.
Zoie stooped for the key, one hand to her giddy head, but Aggie,
who had just returned to the room, reached the key first and
volunteered to go to the aid of the captive Alfred, who was
pounding desperately on the bathroom door and demanding his
instant release.
"I'll let him out," said Aggie. "You get into bed," and she
slipped quickly from the room.
Utterly exhausted and half blind with fatigue Zoie lifted the
coverlet and slipped beneath it. Her first sensation was of
touching something rough and scratchy, then came the awful
conviction that the thing against which she lay was alive.
Without stopping to investigate the identity of her uninvited
bed-fellow, or even daring to look behind her, Zoie fled from the
room emitting a series of screams that made all her previous
efforts in that direction seem mere baby cries. So completely
had Jimmy been enveloped in the coverlets and for so long a time
that he had acquired a vague feeling of aloftness toward the rest
of his fellows, and had lost all knowledge of their goings and
comings. But when his unexpected companion was thrust upon him
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he was galvanised into sudden action by her scream, and swathed
in a large pink comforter, he rolled ignominiously from the upper
side of the bed, where he lay on the floor panting and enmeshed,
awaiting further developments. Of one thing he was certain, a
great deal had transpired since he had sought the friendly solace
of the covers and he had no mind to lose so good a friend as the
pink comforter. By the time he had summoned sufficient courage
to peep from under its edge, a babel of voices was again drawing
near, and he hastily drew back in his shell and waited.
Not daring to glance at the scene of her fright, Zoie pushed
Aggie before her into the room and demanded that she look in the
bed.
Seeing the bed quite empty and noticing nothing unusual in the
fact that the pink comforter, along with other covers, had
slipped down behind it, Aggie hastened to reassure her terrified
friend.
"You imagined it, Zoie," she declared, "look for yourself."
Zoie's small face peeped cautiously around the edge of the
doorway.
"Well, perhaps I did," she admitted; then she slipped gingerly
into the room, "my nerves are jumping like fizzy water."
They were soon to "jump" more, for at this instant, Alfred,
burning with anger at the indignity of having been locked in the
bathroom, entered the room, demanding to know the whereabouts of
the lunatic mother, who had dared to make him a captive in his
own house.
"Where is she?" he called to Zoie and Aggie, and his eye roved
wildly about the room. Then his mind reverted with anxiety to
his newly acquired offspring. "My boys!" he cried, and he rushed
toward the crib. "They're gone!" he declared tragically.
"Gone?" echoed Aggie.
"Not ALL of them," said Zoie.
"All," insisted Alfred, and his hands went distractedly toward
his head. "She's taken them all."
Zoie and Aggie looked at each other in a dazed way. They had a
hazy recollection of having seen one babe disappear with the
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