“Ye’ll not be intinding to put the swate wee cratur in a basket? Oh, oh, did inny one iver be hearing the like av it? It’s niver a baby at Silver Bush that’ll be brought up in your baskets, as if it was no better than a kitten, and that I’m telling ye. Here’s the cradle that I’ve polished wid me own hands and into that same cradle she’ll be going.”
Pat, after a rapturous kiss for mother, tiptoed over to the cradle, trembling with excitement. Judy lifted the baby out and held it so that the children could see it.
“Oh, Judy, isn’t she sweet?” whispered Pat in ecstasy. “Can’t I hold her for just the tiniest moment?”
“That ye can, darlint,” … and Judy put the baby into Pat’s arms before either nurse or Aunt Barbara could prevent her. Oh, oh, that was one in the eye for the nurse!
Pat stood holding the fragrant thing as knackily as if she had been doing it all her life. What tiny, darling legs it had! What dear, wee, crumpled paddies! What little pink nails like perfect shells!
“What colour are its eyes, Judy?”
“Blue,” said Judy, “big and blue like violets wid dew on them, just like Winnie’s. And it’s certain I am that she do be having dimples in her chakes. Sure a woman wid a baby like that naden’t call the quane her cousin.”
“‘The child that is born on the Sabbath day
Will be bonny and blithe and good and gay,’”
said Aunt Barbara.
“Of course she will,” said Pat. “She would, no matter what day she was born on. Isn’t she our baby?”
“Oh, oh, there’s the right spirit for ye,” said Judy.
“The baby must really be put back in the cradle now,” said the nurse by way of reasserting her authority.
Pat relinquished it reluctantly. Only a few minutes ago she had been thinking of the baby as an interloper, only to be tolerated for mother’s sake. But now it was one of the family and it seemed as if it had always been at Silver Bush. No matter how it had come, from stork or black bag or parsley bed, it was there and it was theirs.
Chapter 5
“What’s in a Name?”
1
The new baby at Silver Bush did not get its name until three weeks later when mother was able to come down stairs and the nurse had gone home, much to Judy’s satisfaction. She approved of Miss Martin as little as Miss Martin approved of her.
“Oh, oh, legs and lipstick!” she would say contemptuously, when Miss Martin doffed her regalia and went out to take the air. Which was unjust to Miss Martin, who had no more legs than other women of the fashion and used her lipstick very discreetly. Judy watched her down the lane with a malevolent eye.
“Oh, oh, but I’d like to be putting a tin ear on that one. Wanting to call the wee treasure Greta! Oh, oh, Greta! And her with a grandfather that died and come back to life, that he did!”
“Did he really, Judy Plum?”
“He did that. Old Jimmy Martin was dead as a dorenail for two days. The doctors said it. Thin he come back to life … just to spite his family I’m telling ye. But, as ye might ixpect, he was niver the same agin. His relations were rale ashamed av him. Miss Martin naden’t be holding that rid head av hers so high.”
“But why, Judy?” asked Sid. “Why were they ashamed of him?”
“Oh, oh, whin ye’re dead it’s only dacent to stay dead,” retorted Judy. “Ye’d think she’d remimber that whin she was trying to boss folks who looked after babies afore she was born or thought av, the plum-faced thing! But she’s gone now, good riddance, and we won’t have her stravaging about the house with a puss on her mouth inny more. Too minny bushels for a small canoe … it do be that that’s the trouble wid her.”
“She can’t help her grandfather, Judy,” said Pat.
“Oh, oh, I’m not saying she could, me jewel. We none of us can hilp our ancistors. Wasn’t me own grandmother something av a witch? But it’s sure we’ve all got some and it ought to kape us humble.”
Pat was glad Miss Martin was gone, not because she didn’t like her but because she knew she would be able to hold the baby oftener now. Pat adored the baby. How in the world had Silver Bush ever got on without her? Silver Bush without the baby was quite unthinkable to Pat now. When Uncle Tom asked her gravely if they had decided yet whether to keep or drown the baby she was horrified and alarmed.
“Sure, me jewel, he was only tazing ye,” comforted Judy, with her great, broad, jolly laugh. “‘Tis just an ould bachelor’s idea av a joke.”
They had put off naming the baby until Miss Martin had gone, because nobody really wanted to call the baby Greta but didn’t want to hurt her feelings. The very afternoon she left they attended to the matter … or tried to.
But it was no easy thing to pick a name. Mother wanted to call it Doris after her own mother and father wanted Rachel after his mother. Winnie, who was romantic, wanted Elaine, and Joe thought Dulcie would be nice. Pat had secretly called it Miranda for a week and Sidney thought such a blue-eyed baby ought to be named Violet. Aunt Hazel thought Kathleen just the name for it, and Judy, who must have her say with the rest, thought Emmerillus was a rale classy name. The Silver Bush people thought Judy must mean Amaryllis but were never sure of it.
In the end father suggested that each of them plant a named seed in the garden and see whose came up first. That person should have the privilege of naming the baby.
“If we find more than one up at once the winners must plant over again,” he said.
This was a sporting chance and the children were excited. The seeds were planted and tagged and watched every day: but it was Pat who thought of getting up early in the mornings to keep tabs on the bed. Judy said things came up in the night. There was nothing at dark … and in the morning there you were. And there Pat was on the eighth morning, just as the sun was rising, up before any one but Judy. You would have to get up before you went to bed if you meant to get ahead of Judy.
And Pat’s seed was up! For just one moment she exulted. Then she grew sober and her long-lashed amber eyes filled with troubled wonder. Of course Miranda was a lovely name for a baby. But father wanted Rachel. Mother had named her and Sidney, Uncle Tom had named Joe, Hazel had named Winnie, surely it was father’s turn. He hadn’t said much … father never said much … but Pat knew somehow that he wanted very badly to name the baby Rachel. In her secret heart Pat had hoped that father’s seed would be first.
She looked around her. No living creature in sight except Gentleman Tom, sitting darkly on the cheese stone. The next moment her seed was yanked out and flung into the burdock patch behind the henhouse. Dad had a chance yet.
But luck seemed against poor dad. Next morning Win’s and mother’s seeds were up. Pat ruthlessly uprooted them, too. Win didn’t count
