Yager.
Upon one of the occasions when she was superintending the entrance of a
neighboring baby into the world, her own made a hurried exit. A banana
and a stick of licorice proved too stimulating a diet for him, and he
closed his eyes permanently on a world that had offered few attractions.
It was Nance who, having mothered him from his birth, worked with him
through the long night of agony; and who, when the end came, cut the
faded cotton flowers from her hat to put in the tiny claw-like hand that
had never touched a real blossom; and it was Nance's heart that broke
when they took him away.
It is doubtful whether any abstract moral appeal could have awakened her
as did the going out of that little futile life. It stirred her deepest
sympathies and affections, and connected her for the first time with the
forces that make for moral and social progress.
"He wouldn't a-went if we'd treated him right!" she complained
bitterly to Mr. Snawdor a week later. "He never had no sunshine, nor
fresh air, nor nothin'. You can't expect a baby to live where a
sweet-potato vine can't!"
"He's better off than me," said Mr. Snawdor, "what with the funeral, an'
the coal out, an' the rent due, I'm at the end of my rope. I told her it
was comin'. But she would have a white coffin an' six hacks. They'll have
to set us out in the street fer all I can see!"
Nance looked at him apprehensively.
"Well, we better be doin' something'," she said. "Can't Uncle Jed help
us?"
"I ain't goin' to let him.
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