He came trotting up to the suit case which Marie had spread wide open on
the bed, stood up on his tippy toes, and peered in. The quirky smile was
twitching his lips, and the look he turned toward Marie's back was full
of twinkle. He reached into the suit case, clutched a clean handkerchief
and blew his nose with solemn precision; put the handkerchief back all
crumpled, grabbed a silk stocking and drew it around his neck, and was
straining to reach his little red Brownie cap when Marie turned and
caught him up in her arms.
"No, no, Lovin Child! Baby mustn't. Marie is going to take her lovin'
baby boy to find--" She glanced hastily over her shoulder to make sure
there was no one to hear, buried her face in the baby's fat neck and
whispered the wonder, "--to find hims daddy Bud! Does Lovin Man want
to see hims daddy Bud? I bet he does want! I bet hims daddy Bud will
be glad--Now you sit right still, and Marie will get him a cracker, an'
then he can watch Marie pack him little shirt, and hims little bunny
suit, and hims wooh-wooh, and hims 'tockins--"
It is a pity that Bud could not have seen the two of them in the next
hour, wherein Marie flew to her hopeful task of packing her suit case,
and Lovin Child was quite as busy pulling things out of it, and getting
stepped on, and having to be comforted, and insisting upon having on
his bunny suit, and then howling to go before Marie was ready. Bud would
have learned enough to ease the ache in his heart--enough to humble him
and fill him with an abiding reverence for a love that will live, as
Marie's had lived, on bitterness and regret.
Nearly distracted under the lash of her own eagerness and the fear that
her mother would return too soon and bully her into giving up her wild
plan, Marie, carrying Lovin Child on one arm and lugging the suit case
in the other hand, and half running, managed to catch a street car and
climb aboard all out of breath and with her hat tilted over one ear.
She deposited the baby on the seat beside her, fumbled for a nickel,
and asked the conductor pantingly if she would be in time to catch the
four-five to the city. It maddened her to watch the bored deliberation
of the man as he pulled out his watch and regarded it meditatively.
"You'll catch it--if you're lucky about your transfer," he said, and
rang up her fare and went off to the rear platform, just as if it were
not a matter of life and death at all. Marie could have shaken him for
his indifference; and as for the motorman, she was convinced that he ran
as slow as he dared, just to drive her crazy. But even with these two
inhuman monsters doing their best to make her miss the train, and with
the street car she wanted to transfer to running off and leaving her at
the very last minute, and with Lovin Child suddenly discovering that he
wanted to be carried, and that he emphatically did not want her to carry
the suit case at all, Marie actually reached the depot ahead of the
four-five train. Much disheveled and flushed with nervousness and her
exertions, she dragged Lovin Child up the steps by one arm, found a seat
in the chair car and, a few minutes later, suddenly realized that she
was really on her way to an unknown little town in an unknown part of
the country, in quest of a man who very likely did not want to be found
by her.