know, if they'd go round. Oh, I have a thought! Don't you believe
Aunt Sarah Cobb would keep him? She carries flowers to the
graveyard every little while, and once she took me with her.
There's a marble cross, and it says: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
SARAH ELLEN, BELOVED CHILD OF SARAH AND JEREMIAH COBB, AGED 17
MONTHS. Why, that's another reason; Mrs. Dennett says this one is
seventeen months. There's five of us left at the farm without me,
but if we were only nearer to Riverboro, how quick mother would
let in one more!"

"We might see what father thinks, and that would settle it," said
Emma Jane. "Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful
strong. If we don't bother him, and find a place ourselves for
the baby, perhaps he'll be willing. He's coming now; I hear the
wheels."

Lizy Ann Dennett volunteered to stay and perform the last rites
with the undertaker, and Jack-o'-lantern, with his slender
wardrobe tied in a bandanna handkerchief, was lifted into the
wagon by the reluctant Mr. Perkins, and jubilantly held by
Rebecca in her lap. Mr. Perkins drove off as speedily as
possible, being heartily sick of the whole affair, and thinking
wisely that the little girls had already seen and heard more than
enough of the seamy side of life that morning.

Discussion concerning Jack-o'-lantern's future was prudently
deferred for a quarter of an hour, and then Mr. Perkins was
mercilessly pelted with arguments against the choice of the poor
farm as a place of residence for a baby.