Afore the kid come, me and Marthy used to sit up nights tellin' each
other how much we'd like it if she turned out to be a boy. I said
everything that I knowed that was nice about boys, and drawed on my
imagination for what I didn't know, and Marthy spoke the same; so I
convinced Marthy, thorough, that I would be terrible disappointed if it
wasn't a boy, and she didn't leave me no doubts about her hankerin' for
a baby of the male sect.
Course we was both tryin' to square ourselves in case it _should_ be a
boy. Come to find out, we was both of us tickled to death that it was a
girl.
We'd talked over boys' names by the bushel without ever coming to a
dead-set choice, but we most always squeezed in somewhere, sort of
apologetic, a remark that if it _should_ happen to be a girl we'd have
to call it Edith L., after its grandmother. Somehow, as I look back on
it, it seems as if I'd never thought of that kid, at any time, except as
Edith L. Curious how folks will try to fool theirselves that way.
When it come to the auspicious occasion we had Doc Wolfert in, because
he was the only doc in our end of town. He certainly was a quaint old
bone-setter. Some said he took morphine on the sly, and some said it was
just his natural manner, but he was the shiftiest-eyed medic you ever
saw. No man livin' ever got him to say plain yes or no. He'd walk all
'round them little words, like he was afraid of steppin' on them,
and his gab was full of perhapses and possiblys, and similar slick
side-trackers of knowledge.
I had figgered that when the aforesaid auspicious occasion turned up
I'd clean out to the woods until things got so I'd be useful as well as
ornamental; but when it come to a show-down, I couldn't. Farthest away I
could git was the front porch. I done my good twenty miles on the porch
that day, I'll bet, and whenever I've had a trial and tribulation time
since then, I can hear the sixth board from the south end of that porch
squeak.
I was walkin' on the level, but my spirits was climbin' hills and
coastin' into valleys. First minute I would be stickin' out my chest
and thinkin' how all-fired grand it would be to be a daddy, and the next
minute I'd cave in like a frost-bitten squash and wonder how in
creation I'd ever drag along as a widow-man. One minute I'd see myself
sky-hootin' round with a fine kid on my arm, and the next I'd see myself
alone, with Marthy gone. I've got the reputation around here of being a
humorist man, but I didn't say no funny sayings to myself that day, that
I can remember. I had fever, and cold sweats, and double contraction
of the heart, and whenever I thought of Marthy, I couldn't think of a
decent thing that I'd ever done to her. I felt I was an ornery, lowdown
critter--which I ain't--and I saw Marthy as a spotless angel--which
she ain't neither. She's woman and earthly all through, and mighty good
earth at that. Marthy never knew what a good chance she lost of being
considered a perfectionated saint, but she missed the chance.
Just about when I'd given up all hopes of ever seein' Marthy alive
again, Mrs. Murphy, (who we'd got in to sort of give the kid its first
toilet, it not being expected to be far enough advanced to do much
primping on its own account right at first) come to the door like a
blessed ray of sunshine, and percolated out a smile at me.
Loony as I was, I had sense enough left to know that she wasn't smilin'
at me for flirtation, nor because she had a smile that she didn't know
what to do with and so was passing it out to me, like a hand-out, just
to git rid of it. I connected that smile with other things. I knowed she
was smiling me back from a desolate widow-hood, or widow-man-hood, or
whatever the right word is. I know the right word, but it's got mislaid.
Thank the stars I ain't ever had no use for it, and I hope never to
have. But I guess every man feels like I did when I was walkin' that
porch. When they shut the door on him, and turn him out, and tell him
they will call him when they want him, he's a widow-man right from that
moment and feels so. And when they call him in and say all's doin' as
well as could be expected under the circumstances, right then he feels
like his wife had rose from the dead, and he becomes a married man
again. I felt so, anyhow, and I don't know as I'm a specially fancy
feeler. I don't look it.
Right then I was boosted, like I tell you, from a deep black hole to a
high and airy location, and by a plain-faced, baggy Irish lady that did
washing by the day at fifty cents a day, and you furnished the soap.
She's been my friend ever since, and always will be.
As I passed in, feelin' more like war-whoopin' than like walkin' soft,
she whispered three words at me that finished me up.
“It's a girl,” says she. “Walk light, and stay where you are, and when
you can come in and see the girl, I'll bring her out and show her to
you.”
I was clean idiotic with satisfaction. I sat down on the edge of a chair
and twirled my hat until I couldn't sit still, and then got up and edged
round the room lookin' at the pictures on the wall, for all the world
like I was a visitor. I'd got half-way through lookin' at the things
on the what-not, and was castin' my eye round for the photygraft album,
when Mrs. Murphy stuck her blessed face into the parlor.
“'Sh-h!” says she, “make no noise, and control your feelin's, and you
can come in for a quarter of a second and see your daughter.”
I was so proud I had cold chills, and I walked like a clothes-horse on
castors.
I looked for Marthy first, and I see she was a-sleepin' beautiful, and
then Mrs. Murphy pulled down the covers and showed me Edith L.
[Illustration: Edith L. 66]
I took her all in at a glance, and I formed my own opinion right there.
I was like a rubber balloon when you stick a pin in it, but I didn't
collapse with a bang, I just caved in gradual. I went out of the room,
and out of the house, and sat down on the porch-step and blubbered. They
never missed me.
When I think back on that day it makes me laugh, but I was sure a rank
amateur in the baby business, and I didn't know no better then. Right
now I'd put up every cent I've got that you couldn't find a finer girl
in the state than what Edith L. is, and I've learned since that she was
what you might call an A-1 baby right from the start, but it didn't look
that way to me. She was the first of that age I'd ever been introduced
to, and she looked different than what I'd fig-gered on. I'd seen plenty
of brand new colts, and they run largely to legs, but you'd know them
for horse-critters right off; and I 've seen brand-new puppies, and
their eyes ain't open, but you'd know them immediate for dogs; but that
kid didn't look any more like what I'd calculated Edith L. would look
like, than a cucumber looks like a water-melon. My heart was plumb
broke. I was scairt when I thought what would happen to Marthy when she
saw that wrinkled, red little thing.
I knew we'd have to keep it, but I didn't see how we could bear the
shame. I made up my mind in a minute that we'd sell off the place and
move up into the mountains--just me and Marthy and the girl. I didn't
think of her as Edith L. any more. It wouldn't do to insult mother by
givin' her name to that baby.
I figgered it all out how I'd act better to Marthy than ever, to make up
for the trial that girl would be, and how I'd do all in man's power to
keep the girl from knowin' how handicapped she was by her looks.
Just then Brink Tuomy passed by, and he says:
“How's things comin' along?”
The boys had all been mighty interested in this baby business, and I
knew he'd trot off and tell them, so I says, sad enough:
“It's a girl.”
Brink seen I wasn't very jubilant, so he says:
“You don't seem very stuck up about it. But girls ain't so bad--when you
git used to them. Lady all right?”
“Yes,” I says, “she's O. K.”
Brink hung round a minute or two, waitin' for further orders, and none
comin', he says, hesitatin':
“So long!”