"Whatever you say, love," Ruth sang, trying to sound more comfortable than she felt. This guy was more of a pain to deal with than her husband. More exhausting than frightening, admittedly, but in a sense that was worse. There was no climax, and so he just kept going on and on and on with his petty threats. Even her father seemed to do more work in a day than this weed.

Thank God there was Elijah's cottage. Ruth stepped up to the door and knocked.

"A ball of gas?" Malachi asked, incredulous.

No, he hadn't gone to school. Not the kind that everybody else went to -- not until he was much older than James was now.

"God never specified that it wasn't a ball of gas," he said. "Just that he made it. How else could it have gotten up there?

He lifted his gaze from the boy for but a moment, and- was this... Elijah's house? Malachi looked from the constable, to Ruth, to the cottage they'd arrived at.

Wesley rose his brow and merely watched curiously ad she knocked. "What are you doing?" He smiled a bit. "This isn't your home, and I don't know if he wants you coming in just to change your child." Of course Elijah would, he was so soft he'd let in any beggar or down on their luck person into his home for a meal. It gave the rest of them a bad name in his opinion.

"Well..." He didn't know the answer to that and so he shut up, watching Ruth instead. That was Crane's house. For a copper, Crane was pretty nice, he now knew. But he was still a copper. More importantly, he and uncle Anthony had gone away instead of adopting him. He couldn't be trusted. "Oi, Ruth! We don't need another one!" he shouted.

Ruth ignored her little brother and rolled her eyes at the constable. "It really isn't your business, is it?" Ugh. Why was Elijah not opening the door? Sam began to wail again and his little sister joined him.

Elijah wasn't answering the door. Great.

Malachi vaguely recalled him saying something about not being home in the daytime.

"Perhaps he didn't hear," he suggested, knowing full well it wasn't true. "Knock louder?"

The constable watched the woman knock upon Crane's door with mild satisfaction. He stood there with his arms folded before checking his pocket watch.

"I'd say he's probably off somewhere on the west side of town on patrol by this time. I highly doubt he'll hear you, no matter how loudly you knock. Though I also thought you were planning on changing your baby. Don't tell me you were going to burden yet another man to help you."

He put his hands on his hips. "Go to your home or the church to change her."

Oh good. Crane wasn't home. James jumped out of the cart. "Wait for me, I need to use the privy!" And slipped into the privy in the yard.

They were all treated to the sound of water falling and a loud sigh of relief.

"Shush!" she told the children fretfully. They didn't stop, but they also didn't cry loud enough to drown out the constable's insult. Her eyes narrowed on him. If she hadn't been holding her baby she would probably have trashed him - never mind about prison!

"Are ye jealous? How about you go harass another woman, eh?!" She turned to the privy with a wrinkled nose and shouted over the crying. "Hurry up, James! I'm going."

She strode away, even faster than before, past the priest, in the direction of her parents home. Little Sam couldn't keep up the pace, tripped over his own feet, let go of her hand and fell on the ground. He started crying even louder.

To follow after the angered Ruth, or to stay and make sure James wasn't held up by the constable...

Ah. The little boy fell, and that decided that.

James knew how to run off if he had to, right?

Malachi left the cart, swiftly finding his way to little Sam's side to help him up.

"Hey, it's okay," he cooed, "did you get hurt?"