Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Runaway wives -- Fiction; Sportswriters -- Fiction
Presently Kate went out. Peter sat by the window and looked up towards
the park. He could catch a glimpse of it by leaning out. There was a
moon. A wind whipped through the trees and they were swaying back and
then rushing forward again whenever the gusts gave them an opening. That
was a sort of dance. He turned away from the window. There was nothing
in the room to remind him of Maria except the grand piano. He would get
rid of that. His mind began to lose its ache. He could accept the fact
that Maria had gone. He would remember her now always as he had seen her
that first night standing still in the centre of the stage just before
she began to dance. The sight of Maria washing a baby would have been
queer. It was all right for nurses and old Irish women and sporting
writers to mess around with babies and soap and rubber-tipped milk
bottles. Somehow or other he was glad he had never seen the greatest
dancer in all the world with a mouth full of safety pins.
CHAPTER VI
Miss Haine seemed somewhat surprised when Peter arrived at the hospital
alone the next morning. "You're not going to carry him back yourself?"
she said.
"Why not?"
"Have you ever held a baby?"
Peter thought back. "Not such a little one," he admitted.
"Well then, watch me," she said. "See, take him like this. If you don't
he's sure to cry."
"But he's crying now," protested Peter.
"That's for some other reason. It isn't because I'm holding him wrong.
All little babies cry a good deal at first. It's good for them. Any time
a small baby doesn't cry a certain number of hours a day there's
something wrong. You see he isn't big enough to walk, or crawl, or even
roll around much and crying is the way he gets his exercise. He's
getting air into his little lungs now."
"There isn't anything to be done about it?" Peter wanted to know.
"Well, of course, you must look first of all to see if there is any real
reason for his crying. His skin is very sensitive. There might be a pin
sticking in him. It might be that his clothes need to be changed." Miss
Haine paused. "Yes, he wants to be changed now."
Peter made a step toward the door, "Oh, you'll have to learn this," said
Miss Haine. "Watch me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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