Undertow

e slow coming of spring had brought her a new tenderness and a new dependence, and instinctively she felt that, when she came home again, she would be a new Nancy. T

haven't we, Bert?" sh

be, my darling

happy, happier perhaps than ever. But she knew that she was no lo

d of a safe and cheerful place, became full of possible dangers for the baby, Albert the eighth. Nancy, instead of a self-reli

t was. If the Cullinan Diamond had been placed in Nancy's keeping, rather than worry about it as she worried about Junior, she would have flung it gaily into the East River. But she could not dispose of the baby; her greate

otund linen-swathed form of Junior, she felt that words were unnecessary. She never really saw the baby's face, she saw something idealized, haloed, angelic. In later year she used to

m. Would he just LOOK at Junior? No, he was all RIGHT, only he had h

ed!-Nancy would break into tears. "Bert-hadn't we better a

t his dinner. Of course he was all right, only, being alon

d solved their first, simple problem, she set about solving this new one. They had forty dollars a week with which

is mother called "an ouncer" to take the top-milk safely from the bottle, and a small ice box for the carefully prepared bottles, and the bottles themselves. He always needed powder and safety-pins and new socks, and presentl

e of welcome to his father, Bert was moved almost to tears. When she wheeled him through the streets, royally benign after a full bottle, rosy-chee

that forty dollars every week was riches, but between Junior's demands, and the little leakage of Esmeralda's wages, and her he

bright to the young Bradleys. Junior, curly-headed, white-clad, and excited over a hard crust of toast, sat between his parents, who interrupted

now the baby was approaching his first anniversary, and it was perfectly obvious that his weight was no longer a matter of concern. He was so large, so tall, and so fat that one of Nancy's daily satisfactions was to have other mothers, in

Bert asked. "We pay our bi

e without a frightful amount of worry and fuss about money. To ju

ubmitted, picking Junior's damp crust from the floor, eyein

ortable living for everyone in this world who works even half as hard as

socialis

r pretty brow

a socialist. I guess I

could not understand. Toil as she might, from morning until nig

rket, wheeled him home for another bottle and another nap. Then it was time for her own meal, and there were a few more dishes, and some simple laundry work to do, and then again the boy was dressed, and the perambulator was bumped out of the niche below the stairs, and they went out again. The hardest hour of all, in the warm lengthening days of spring, was between five and six. Junior was tired and cross, dinner preparations were under way, the table must be set, one more last bottle warme

our book, dear?"

e Junior to-day, and I've been as heavy as lead ever since!

you so, do y

y tiring. He never uses all my time, and yet I can't do anything else

year?" Bert questione

a sleepy kiss, Nancy would trail away, only too

s. They left Esmeralda in charge of Junior, and made an afternoon of it, and dined down town in the old way. Over the meal Bert told her t

asked, appreciatively. She had just spent almost a hundred dollars for her summer clothes and the boy's! And now they were really going to the blessed country, to be free for six weeks from pla