Kate was so glad when she sat in the carriage that was to take her from the house and the woman she abominated that she could scarcely behave properly.  She clasped Adam tightly in her arms, and felt truly his mother.  She reached over and tucked the blanket closer over Polly, but she did not carry her, because she resembled her grandmother, while Adam was a Bates.

George drove carefully.  He was on behaviour too good to last, but fortunately both women with him knew him well enough not to expect that it would.  When they came in sight of the house, Kate could see that the grass beside the road had been cut, the trees trimmed, and Oh, joy, the house freshly painted a soft, creamy white she liked, with a green roof.  Aunt Ollie explained that she furnished the paint and George did the work.  He had swung oblong clothes baskets from the ceiling of a big, cheery, old-fashioned bedroom for a cradle for each baby, and established himself in a small back room adjoining the kitchen.  Kate said nothing about the arrangement, because she supposed it had been made to give her more room, and that George might sleep in peace, while she wrestled with two tiny babies.

There was no doubt about the wrestling.  The babies seemed of nervous temperament, sleeping in short naps and lightly.  Kate was on her feet from the time she reached her new home, working when she should not have worked; so that the result developed cross babies, each attacked with the colic, which raged every night from six o’clock until twelve and after, both frequently shrieking at the same time.  George did his share by going to town for a bottle of soothing syrup, which Kate promptly threw in the creek.  Once he took Adam and began walking the floor with him, extending his activities as far as the kitchen.  In a few minutes he had the little fellow sound asleep and he did not waken until morning; then he seemed to droop and feel listless.  When he took the baby the second time and made the same trip to the kitchen, Kate laid Polly on her bed and silently followed.  She saw George lay the baby on the table, draw a flask from his pocket, pour a spoon partly full, filling it the remainder of the way from the teakettle.  As he was putting the spoon to the baby’s lips, Kate stepped beside him and taking it, she tasted the contents.  Then she threw the spoon into the dishpan standing near and picked up the baby.

“I knew it!” she said.  “Only I didn’t know what.  He acted like a drugged baby all last night and to-day.  Since when did you begin carrying that stuff around with you, and feeding it to tiny babies?”

“It’s a good thing.  Dr. James recommended it.  He said it was harmful to let them strain themselves crying, and very hard on you.  You could save yourself a lot,” he urged.

“I need saving all right,” said Kate, “but I haven’t a picture of myself saving myself by drugging a pair of tiny babies.”

He slipped the bottle back in his pocket.  Kate stood looking at him so long and so intently, he flushed and set the flask on a shelf in the pantry.  “It may come in handy some day when some of us have a cold,” he said.