"Want to go one more time?" Mr. James asked.
"Yes!" chorused Marjorie, Mary Lou, Anna, and Marlene. They were on the roundabout at the park. Mr. James had taken his daughters there because Mrs. James didn't feel well and needed to rest. Anna had come over to play and so had ended up going with them, too.
"Whee!" said all four girls as the roundabout spun around again.
"Want to do something else for awhile?" asked Mr. James when it stopped. "I think Marlene is getting dizzy."
"Let's play hide and seek," Mary Lou suggested. "Daddy can count."
Mr. James counted to ten while the girls quickly found hiding places. Anna hid underneath a bench.
"Ready or not, here I come!" called Mr. James. He found Marlene almost right away, of course. Next he found Anna, then Mary Lou hiding behind a bush.
The four of them looked high and low for Marjorie. Mr. James began to get concerned.
"I hope she didn't wander too far," he said.
"There she is!" cried Marlene a few minutes later, pointing upwards. The others looked up to see Marjorie sitting on a tree branch, grinning down at them.
"How'd you get all the way up there?" asked Mr. James.
"I don't remember!" Marjorie's smile disappeared, and a look of fear crossed her face. "I don't know how to get down, either."
Just then, Anna felt a single rain drop hit her nose. She watched as Marjorie puckered up to cry and knew the older girl would be terribly embarrassed about it later.
"I'm coming up for you," said Mr. James. He began to scale the trunk as a soft mist began to fall. His foot slipped, and he almost fell.
"Daddy!" cried Marlene.
At last he reached the level of his older daughter's feet. Impatient, Marjorie reached for him. The branch she was on made a cracking noise, and as her father pulled her into his arms, it fell away. Watching from the ground, Anna and Mary Lou gasped.
By the time Mr. James and Marjorie reached the ground, everyone was soaked to the skin. They set out for home as fast as they could, sheets of rain still blowing in their faces.
As soon as they entered the house, they heard loud moaning coming from the bedroom.
"My God!" said Mr. James, dashing for it. The girls followed. Anna saw Mrs. James lying in bed, her face a mask of pain.
"Call Dr. Reiker!" she cried.
"I'm taking you to the hospital right now!" her husband replied.
"There isn't time!"
Suddenly, everything was happening very fast. Mr. James darted to the kitchen to make the call. Moments later, Anton ran into the house, a look of panic on his face.
"Am I on time?" he asked.
"Barely," Mr. James told him. He let him into the bedroom, then shooed the girls out and closed and locked the door.
"Is Mommy gonna be OK?" asked Marlene, her eyes wide with fright.
"I don't know," said Marjorie, whose own face had turned pale. "I think the baby's about to come."
"I thought babies were only born in hospitals," said Mary Lou.
"Not always," Anna told her. "My Daddy said a baby can be born anywhere."
"Even on an airplane?"
"I guess so."
After what seemed like forever, the door finally opened, and Anton stood there, beaming.
"You can come in now," he told the girls.
Inside the bedroom, Mr. James sat in a chair by the bed, looking exhausted but happy, and Mrs. James lay in bed, cuddling the tiniest infant Anna had ever seen. She smiled at her daughters.
"Come meet your new baby sister, Marianna Grace James," she said.
One by one, Marjorie, Mary Lou, and Marlene went up to the bed for a closer look at the newborn.
"Was I that little when I was born?" asked Marlene.
"You certainly were!" her mother told her.
"You and I need to go home now," Anton told Anna. "You are dripping water on the floor, and your mother is waiting. How did you get so wet, anyway?"
When they got back home, Patty was sitting in a recliner, reading a paperback, while a pot of stew simmered on the stove. She looked up as her husband and daughter entered the house.
"How in the world did you get so wet, Anna?"
"She was caught in a rainstorm," Anton told her. "The Jameses have a beautiful new baby girl."
Patty smiled. "That's wonderful!"
"Mary Lou's family has four kids now, and our family has only two," Anna observed.
"Some families have more kids than others," said Patty. "Mrs. Brimmer has six brothers and sisters!"
"Will our family ever have another baby?" asked Anna.
"I don't know," said Patty. "You and Simon are quite a handful sometimes!"
"But Marjorie and Mary Lou and Marlene are a handful, too, and their Mommy just had another baby."
Patty laughed. "I promise you, Anna, if we ever have another baby, you'll be the first to know about it. Now, go change your clothes!"