"My, I wish he'd come!" cried Mickey.

"So do I," said the nurse. "But so far Mickey, I think you are doing all right. If she must be operated, she'd have to be put in condition for it; and while I suspect I could beat you at your job, I am positive you are far surpa.s.sing what she did have."

"Well I know that too," said Mickey. "But surpa.s.sing nothing at all isn't going either far or fast. I must do something."

"If you could bring yourself to consent to giving her up----" suggested the nurse.

"Well I can't!" interposed Mickey.

"Just for a while!" continued the nurse.

"Not for a minute! I found her! She's mine!"

"Yes, I know; but----" began the nurse.

"I know too," said Mickey. "Gimme a little time." He studied the problem till he reached his grocery. There he thriftily lifted the cloth to peep, and with a sigh of satisfaction pursued his way.

Presently he opened his door, to be struck by a wave of hot air and to note a flushed little face and drawn mouth as he went into Peaches'

outstretched arms. Then he delivered the carefully carried clover and the following:

"_I got these from a big, pink field bewildering, That G.o.d made a-purpose for cows and childering. Her share is being consumed by the cow, Let's go roll in ours right now._"

"Again!" demanded Peaches.

Mickey repeated slowly.

"How could we?" asked Peaches.

"Easy!" said Mickey.

"'Easy?'" repeated Peaches.

"Just as easy!" reiterated Mickey.

"Did you see it?" demanded Peaches.

"Yes, I saw it to-day," said Mickey. "It's like this: you see some folks live in houses all built together, and work at selling things to eat, and wear, and making things, and doing other work that must be done like doctors, and lawyers, and hospitals; _that's a city_. Then to _feed them_, other folks live on big pieces of land; the houses are far apart, with streets between, and beside them the big fields where the wheat grows for our bread, and our potatoes, and the gra.s.s, and the clover like this to feed the cows. To-day Mr. Bruce didn't play long, so I went walking and stopped at a house for a drink, and there was the nicest lady; we talked some and she give me our supper in that pretty basket; and she sent you the clovers from a big pink field so sweet smelly it would 'most make you sick; and there are trees through it, and lots of birds sing, and there are wild roses and fringy white flowers; and it's quiet 'cept the birds, and the roosters crowing, and the wind comes in little perfumery blows on you, and such milk!"

"Better 'an our milk?" asked Peaches.

"Their milk is so rich it makes ours look like a poorhouse relation,"

scoffed Mickey.

"Tell me more," demanded Peaches.

"Wait 'til I get the water to wash you, you are so warm."

"Yes, it's getting some hot; but 'tain't nothing like on the rags last summer. It's like a real lady here."

"A pretty warm lady, just the same," said Mickey.

Then he brought water and leaving the door ajar for the first time, he soon started a draft; that with the coming of cooler evening lowered the child's temperature, and made her hungry. As he worked Mickey talked. The gra.s.s, the blooming orchard, the hen and her little downy chickens, the big cool porch, the wonderful woman and man, the boy whom they expected and who did not come; and then cautiously, slowly, making sure she understood, he developed his plan to take her to the country.

Peaches drew back and opened her lips. Mickey promptly laid the washcloth over them.

"Now don't begin to say you 'won't' like a silly baby," he said. "Try it and see, then if you don't like it, you can come right back. You want to ride in a grand automobile like a millyingaire lady, don't you?

All the swells go away to the country for the summer, you got to be a swell lady! I ain't going to have you left way behind!"

"Mickey, would you be there?" she asked.

"Yes lady, I'd be right on the job!" said Mickey. "I'd be there a lot more than I am here. You go the week they wanted that boy, and he didn't come; then if you like it, I'll see if they won't board you, and you can have a nice little girl to play with, and a fat, real baby, and a boy bigger than me--and you should see Peter!"

Peaches opened her lips, Mickey reapplied the cloth.

"Calm down now!" he ordered. "I've decided to do it. We got to hump ourselves. This is our _chance_. Why there's milk, and b.u.t.ter, and eggs, and things to eat there like you never tasted, and to have a cool breeze, and to lie on the gra.s.s----"

"Oh Mickey, could I?" cried Peaches.

"Sure silly! Why not?" said Mickey. "There's big fields of it, and the cows don't need it all. You can lie on the gra.s.s, or the clover, and hear the birds, and play with the children. I'll take a day and get things started right before I leave you to come to work, like I'll have to. When I come at night, I'll carry your outdoors; why I'll take you down to the water and you can kick your feet in it, where it's nice and warm; all the time you can have as many flowers as your hands will hold; and such bird singing, why Lily Peaches O'Halloran, there are birds as red as blood, yes ma'am, and yellow as orange peel and light blue like this ribbon and dark blue like that--hold still 'til I fix you--and such singing!"

"Mickey, would you hold me?" wavered Peaches.

"Smash anybody that lays a finger on you, unless you say so," said Mickey promptly.

"And you'd stay a whole day?" she asked anxiously.

"Sure!" cried Mickey.

"An' if I was afraid you'd bring me back?" she went on.

"Sure! Right away!" he promised.

"An' they wouldn't anybody 'get' me there?"

"'Way out there 'mong the clover?" scoffed Mickey. "Why it's _here_ they'll '_get_' you if they are going to. n.o.body out there _wants_ you, but me."

"Mickey, when will you take me?" she asked eagerly.

"Before so very long," promised Mickey. "You needn't be surprised to hear me coming with the nice lady to see you any day now, and to be wrapped in a sheet, and put in a big car, and just scooted right out to the very place that G.o.d made especial for little girls. To-night we put in another blesses, Lily. We'll pray, 'Bless the nice lady who sent our supper,' won't we?"

"Yes Mickey, and 'fore you came I didn't want any supper at all, and now I _do_," said Peaches.

"You were too warm honey," said Mickey. "We'll just fix this old hot city. We'll run right away from it. See? Now we'll have the grandest supper we ever had."

Mickey brought water, plates, and forks, and opened the basket. Peaches bolstered with her pillows cried out and marvelled. There was a quart bottle of milk wrapped in a wet cloth. There was a big loaf of crusty brown country bread. There was a small blue bowl of yellow b.u.t.ter, a square of honey even yellower, a box of strawberries, and some powdered sugar, and a little heap of sliced, cold boiled ham. Mickey surveyed the table.

"Now Miss Chicken, here's how!" he warned. "I found you all warm and feverish. If you load up with this, you'll be sick sure. You get a cup of milk, a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter, some berries and a teeny piece of meat. We can live from this a week, if the heat doesn't spoil it."

"You fix me," said Peaches.

Then they had such a supper as they neither one ever had known, during which Mickey explained wheat fields and bread, bees and honey, cows and clover, pigs and ham, as he understood them. Peaches repeated her lesson and her prayers and then as had become her custom, demanded that Mickey write his last verse on the slate, so she might learn and copy it on the morrow. She was asleep before he finished. Mickey walked softly, cleared the table, placed it before the window, and taking from his pocket an envelope Mr. Bruce had given him drew out a sheet of folded paper on which he wrote long and laboriously, then locking Peaches in, he slipped down to the mail-box and posted this letter: