In the mother-pouch of her mind, so small a part then, so soon to swell, this fact was at once alerted. The dog’s nails on the bare floor made almost such a sound. Although the dog was just yawning awake, still in its padded bed, they half thought it this. Sooner or later, they would have looked in on the crib in passing. They paused drowsily at its side. A child in a crib has a certain shape—rounded. This shape was no longer there. She saw that before he did. The thing that lay there, belly arched, was not hers—a long, stringy puppet, its legs still working in terrible ricochet from the kick that had flung it there. As she screamed, the clamped chin tilted; in the head, scooped up by her to an inner mutter that it was round, still round, the eyes had retreated but were there, pupil-less, white. Later, they could not have said which of them bent to pick it up, which cried “Let it stay!”, which said to get Sonsie, answered yes get her. The mother had guessed what it was—from an old tale.
