warm things, there seemed to be enough for two or three babies, and even to Jamie’s unpractised eyes they seemed to be fine things, carefully made things, lovingly fashioned things, with tiny buds of pink and forget-me-nots of blue and wee yellow daisies showing here and there. As Jamie slammed shut the suitcase, he stood erect and addressed the back window. Possibly he was speaking to the ocean that glinted blue and gold beyond.
“Right this minute,” said the preacher in Jamie, said the judge in Jamie, said the stern critic in Jamie, “right this minute, between the two of you, I’m thinking most of the dead woman!”
He carried the suitcase out and dropped it on the floor beside the sleeping baby. Then he sat down and turned back the face blanket and worked back the clothing and pushed away the hood strings tied under the chin, and looked long and intently at the baby. He did not remind him of any one. He was very small. He had eyes and a nose and a mouth. He was extremely red. The girl on the pillow was not reproduced in him in so far as Jamie could see. Then, as the Scout Master had done, he examined the hands. He got more from them than he did from the face. They were perfect hands, fashioned exquisitely, long, slender fingers, beautifully tapering fingers, with little nails finished and extended beyond the finger ends, perfect workmanship, and they were such fingers as paint pictures and play violins and lovingly handle the kind of books that the Bee Master had bequeathed to the little Scout.
