Mrs. Moriarty's natural supposition had been that Esther was with the baby so carelessly turned over to the Einsteins; and occasionally, of course, she did visit that official error. But as its novelty diminished and its lung power increased Esther became reconciled to the mistake.
"He cried, awful," Rebecca would explain, "und we didn't really need him. We had lots. The old baby ain't yet so big. She couldn't to stand even. Und she needs all her clothes. My poor mamma has it pretty hard."
"Ain't it funny?" mused Esther, all unconscious that she was grappling with a world problem. "Ain't it funny, Becky? You got too many families, und so you gets some more. I ain't got no families, und I loses mine auntie. Ain't it fierce?"
"It sure is fierce," her friend admitted through the howls of the youngest Einstein. "But don't you care, Esther. I guess, maybe, that Stork will get round to your order soon. _One_ baby," she spoke from experience and with conviction, "is lots of family."
"I don't know do I needs that kind from baby what you got," Esther objected. "It's an awful loud baby, ain't it?"
"It is," Rebecca admitted. And any one of the fifteen Einsteins or even any neighbor to the fourth or fifth house removed would have corroborated her.
"Und it's got black hair," Esther further objected.
"They all do when they ain't redheaded," retorted the now ruffled Rebecca. "Ain't you got nothin' to do on'y knockin' other people's babies? First off you says he's yours, und now you says he's too loud und too black. Well, he ain't too loud or too black fer me. You wait till your own baby comes. Maybe you'll get somethin' worster, with fish's faces, maybe. How will you like that? You can't never tell what kind they're goin' to be, an' you've _got_ to keep 'em."
This haphazard system--or the lack of it--rather alarmed Esther, though the desire for a baby of her own design and choosing was growing stronger every day. For her loneliness was growing, too. Jacob was hardly ever at home. He spent many of his days and all of his evenings in his fruitless, endless search. And Mrs. Moriarty had begun to help him through some subterranean first-cousin-twice-removed channel which connected her with a member of the police force. She was making a canvass of the women's lodging-houses near the Bowery.