“How so?” I asked, my voice all of a tremble.
“How so?” she asks; “No 'how so' at all. She weighs ten pounds, and
she's sound in wind and limb,” she says, “and look at the grand shape
of her head! She'll be a college professoress at least, or maybe in
Congress before her pa. It's a grand baby she is!”
“Ten pounds!” I says; “ain't that some dwarfish?”
“Hear the man!” she says. “I don't believe he knows a fine baby when he
sees one.”
“Do you mean that, Mrs. Murphy?” I asked, every bit of blood in me goin'
on the jump.
“Mean it?” she says; “I've had six of my own, and not one of them could
hold a candle to this one.”
“Marthy!” I says. “Is it so?”
“Mrs. Murphy has fine children,” she says; “but my little girl, I think,
is finer.”
[Illustration: Mrs. Murphy's Children 86]
“How's her head?” I asked. “Perfect,” she says.
“And her color?”
“So healthy,” she says.
“And her legs?”
“So straight and strong,” she says. I took hold of her hand and squeezed
it good, and then I went to the window and looked out, and I saw all the
boys lined up along the fence waitin' for me to come out and let them
know that what I'd told Brink Tuomy was so.
Proud? I was so proud I felt like givin' Mrs. Murphy a million dollars.
“Dang it!” I yelped. “Let her dad have another good look at Edith L.”