Perth Amboy Evening News

A DASH FOR FREEDOM
By
JANE CASHION.

"I'm so glad you've come," said Mrs. Milburn, thrusting a weeping baby into her husband's arms the moment his overcoat was off. "She's a little fretful, but she'll be all right with you. It's wonderful how she crows and sings when you dance around with her."

Milburn looked into the face of his grandchild with a mock severity that did not appear to frighten her, for the little frowning crinkles smoothed into a smile. When he threw her up to his shoulder with a tender semblance of roughness she cooed with delight.

"Isn't she just the sweetest thing you ever saw?" cried the grandmother.

"Oh, I don't know, Alice. There have been others. I do have a fellow feeling for her, though, because she's bald." Milburn pulled the infant down from his shoulder and kissed the spot where the soft fuzzy curls had worn off on the pillow. "But why am I elected nurse girl? I intended to write a brief tonight."

He proffered the baby to his wife.

"I can't take her now. I've got something to do in the kitchen."

"What have you got to do in the kitchen? I thought Manda was capable of getting up a dinner unassisted."

"Well, Manda isn't here. I let her go over to Ethel's."

"You don't mean to say that Ethel is without a girl again?"

"No, but she's having a little dinner tonight, and her maid is so incompetent that I sent Manda out to manage things. She'll be a great help to Ethel."

"Sometimes I wonder if Ethel will ever learn to manage her own housekeeping," growled Ethel's father. "How did we happen to be honored by a visit from Laura's baby? Is Laura giving a party, too?"

"No. Anyone would think you were cross who didn't know that you simply adore that baby."

"Even that granted, I have yet other aims and ambitions in life than nurse girling. I think I remarked that I had a brief to write this evening."

"Well, you can do it after dinner. Tom wanted Laura to dine with him downtown, so she brought baby here and went down early to do some shopping. Poor Laura doesn't get out very often."

"No, that's so. This is only the third time this week that her baby has been quartered on us."

"Well, this is the end of the week, and anyway I think it's a joy to have such a perfect little darling come to visit us. You know you think so, too."

"Maybe I do, but as I tried to explain, I have a little matter of my own on hand."

Mrs. Milburn, however, had gone to the kitchen and there was nothing for Milburn to do but establish the baby among the pillows on the couch while he made his toilet in as entertaining a manner as he could invent. He brushed his hair with free flourishes that won gurgles from the small onlooker, and he was rewarded by applause when he removed his shoes with kicks that sent them flying across the floor. When Mrs. Milburn came to say that dinner was ready she found the baby in a state of hilarity.

"You manage her better than anyone else," she declared.

"In other words, I'm the biggest monkey in the family." Milburn endeavored not to look proud.

"I'll take her now while you go down and look at the furnace. I think the fire needs a little coal before dinner."

"Where's Dagget? What do we keep a houseman for? Stoking isn't my—"

"Now, you know you don't mind fixing the fire once in a while. I let Dagget go out to Nell's. She telephoned me this morning that the paper hangers had left her house in a fearful state and it's so hard to get anyone in the suburbs to do cleaning that I just sent Dagget out. I knew that he would be a great comfort to Nell."

"Oh, no doubt," remarked Milburn.

After dinner when Milburn, with the baby in his arms, was dancing his own version of the tango in the kitchen while his wife washed the dishes, the telephone rang.

"I'll keep her while you answer," said Mrs. Milburn. When he returned, his peculiar expression made her ask:

"Who was it?"

"Laura called up to know if the baby was good. She said Tom had asked her to go to the theater, and would we mind keeping the baby. Of course I said the pleasure was all ours, and then she said she wouldn't like to take the baby out in the middle of the night, and the only thing the baby would need was a bottle at three o'clock in the morning. Just a little bottle at 3 a. m., my dear. That's all."

"You needn't be so sarcastic. That won't be any bother at all. I shall have it on the radiator keeping warm and—"

"Even if it should be a bother, we won't mind, for it will be a kind of farewell celebration. Tomorrow we move to a hotel."

"Move to a hotel! Why, what can we do with the house?"

"Rent it, I suppose. Anyway we won't run it any longer as a help-supplying depot and emergency station."

"Why?"

"I meant it, my dear. Tomorrow we'll make a dash for freedom."