Your baby is running a little fever, and you want to see that she watches him and calls your doctor if he gets much worse. She sits in one of the empty rooms and reads all the time and forgets. Ring the bell and ask her once or twice if he's all right."
The baby was running a fever! Then she would never even bring him home. He would never lie in the ivory-white crib nor wear the cunning little nighties that could draw together with a string under his tiny pink feet. He'd never squeak the little duck that was made of Turkish toweling. His tiny heart would flutter more slowly every hour, and finally it would flutter no more. Here he would die, here in the cold, hard hospital whiteness, and hia little soul would fly through the terrible chemical odors and out into the starry summer night. Not even in her arms would he die, but alone, with no one near who loved him. Her baby. Her little lamb. And Miss Brown would calmly read while this was going on? Dot's lips shut in a firm, white line. She'd kill her if the baby died before Dr. Stewart had been summoned. She'd brain her.
Miss Brown came on duty. She looked in the ward and shouted a cheery "Hello."
Dot called her over. "My baby's pretty sick, isn't he?" she said.
"I was just looking on the chart," returned Miss Brown. "He's got a little fever, but that's natural from not eating. It's nothing to worry about."
"No?" asked Dot. "Well, we'll worry about it anyhow. That's being on the safe side."
"You'll spoil your milk, worrying."
"You haven't got any milk; so you worry," said Dot.
Miss Brown raised her eyebrows and walked away. She could see Parsons' hand in this.
Dot planned to get some sleep before ten o'clock so that she could lie awake through the night and question
