Undeniably Billy, if not Bertram, was indeed realizing the Enormous Responsibility, and was keeping ever before her the Important Trust.
In June Bertram took a cottage at the South Shore, and by the time the really hot weather arrived the family were well settled. It was only an hour away from Boston, and easy of access, but William said he guessed he would not go; he would stay in Boston, sleeping at the house, and getting his meals at the club, until the middle of July, when he was going down in Maine for his usual fishing trip, which he had planned to take a little earlier than usual this year.
``But you'll be so lonesome, Uncle William,''
Billy demurred, ``in this great house all alone!''
``Oh, no, I sha'n't,'' rejoined Uncle William.
``I shall only be sleeping here, you know,'' he finished. with a slightly peculiar smile.
It was well, perhaps, that Billy did not exactly realize the significance of that smile, nor the unconscious emphasis on the word ``sleeping,'' for it would have troubled her not a little.
William, to tell the truth, was quite anticipating that sleeping. William's nights had not been exactly restful since the baby came. His evenings, too, had not been the peaceful things they were wont to be.
Some of Billy's Rules and Tests were strenuously objected to on the part of her small son, and the young man did not hesitate to show it.
Billy said that it was good for the baby to cry, that it developed his lungs; but William was very sure that it was not good for _him_. Certainly, when the baby did cry, William never could help hovering near the center of disturbance, and he always _had_ to remind Billy that it might be a pin, you know, or some cruel thing that was hurting.
As if he, William, a great strong man, could sit calmly by and smoke a pipe, or lie in his comfortable bed and sleep, while that blessed little baby was crying his heart out like that! Of course, if one did not _know_ he was crying-- Hence William's anticipation of those quiet, restful nights when he could not know it.
Very soon after Billy's arrival at the cottage, Aunt Hannah and Alice Greggory came down for a day's visit. Aunt Hannah had been away from Boston for several weeks, so it was some time since she had seen the baby.
``My, but hasn't he grown!'' she exclaimed, picking the baby up and stooping to give him a snuggling kiss. The next instant she almost dropped the little fellow, so startling had been Billy's cry.
``No, no, wait, Aunt Hannah, please,'' Billy was entreating, hurrying to the little corner cupboard. In a moment she was back with a small bottle and a bit of antiseptic cotton. ``We always sterilize our lips now before we kiss him--it's so much safer, you know.''
Aunt Hannah sat down limply, the baby still in her arms.
``Fiddlededee, Billy! What an absurd idea!
What have you got in that bottle?''
``Why, Aunt Hannah, it's just a little simple listerine,'' bridled Billy, ``and it isn't absurd at all. It's very sensible. My `Hygienic Guide for Mothers' says--''
``Well, I suppose I may kiss his hand,'' interposed Aunt Hannah, just a little curtly, ``without subjecting myself to a City Hospital treatment!''
Billy laughed shamefacedly, but she still held her ground.
``No, you can't--nor even his foot. He might get them in his mouth. Aunt Hannah, why does a baby think that everything, from his own toes to his father's watch fob and the plush balls on a caller's wrist-bag, is made to eat? As if I could sterilize everything, and keep him from getting hold of germs somewhere!''
``You'll have to have a germ-proof room for him,'' laughed Alice Greggory, playfully snapping her fingers at the baby in Aunt Hannah's lap.
Billy turned eagerly.
``Oh, did you read about that, too?'' she cried. ``I thought it was _so_ interesting, and Iwondered if I could do it.''
Alice stared frankly.
``You don't mean to say they actually _have_such things,'' she challenged.
``Well, I read about them in a magazine,''
asserted Billy, ``--how you could have a germ-proof room. They said it was very simple, too.
Just pasteurize the air, you know, by heating it to one hundred and ten and one-half degrees Fahrenheit for seventeen and one-half minutes. Iremember just the figures.''
``Simple, indeed! It sounds so,'' scoffed Aunt Hannah, with uplifted eyebrows.
``Oh, well, I couldn't do it, of course,'' admitted Billy, regretfully. ``Bertram never'd stand for that in the world. He's always rushing in to show the baby off to every Tom, Dick and Harry and his wife that comes; and of course if you opened the nursery door, that would let in those germ things, and you _couldn't_ very well pasteurize your callers by heating them to one hundred and ten and one-half degrees for seventeen and one-half minutes! I don't see how you could manage such a room, anyway, unless you had a system of--of rooms like locks, same as they do for water in canals.''
``Oh, my grief and conscience--locks, indeed!'' almost groaned Aunt Hannah. ``Here, Alice, will you please take this child--that is, if you have a germ-proof certificate about you to show to his mother. I want to take off my bonnet and gloves.''
``Take him? Of course I'll take him,'' laughed Alice; ``and right under his mother's nose, too,''
she added, with a playful grimace at Billy. ``And we'll make pat-a-cakes, and send the little pigs to market, and have such a beautiful time that we'll forget there ever was such a thing in the world as an old germ. Eh, babykins?''
``Babykins'' cooed his unqualified approval of this plan; but his mother looked troubled.
``That's all right, Alice. You may play with him,'' she frowned doubtfully; ``but you mustn't do it long, you know--not over five minutes.''
``Five minutes! Well, I like that, when I've come all the way from Boston purposely to see him,'' pouted Alice. ``What's the matter now?
Time for his nap?''
