JACKY AND JEMMY.
'Now, my dear,' said grandmother, when she had rested for a minute or
two, 'where's my lad's wife? Your mother, my lass; where is she?'
'Oh, she's in bed, grandmother!' said Poppy. 'She's very ill, is my
mother.'
'I'll go up and see her,' said the old woman. 'To think that my John
Henry has been a married man these ten years, and I've never seen his
wife!'
But when she _did_ see John Henry's wife, grandmother sat down and
sobbed like a child. She was so white, so thin, so worn, that the kind
old woman's heart was filled with love and with shame--love for her poor
suffering daughter-in-law, shame that her son, the lad of whom she had
been so proud, should have left her when she needed him so much.
How long grandmother would have cried it is impossible to say, had not a
dismal wail come from one side of the bed, followed almost immediately
by another dismal wail from the other side of the bed. It was Enoch and
Elijah, who had fallen asleep for a few minutes whilst Poppy was
downstairs, but who had waked up at the sound of a strange voice.
Grandmother sprang from her seat as soon as she heard them cry. She had
not seen the babies before, for they were covered by the bed-clothes.
She held them one in each arm, and kissed them again and again.
'Oh, my bonny, bonny bairns!' she said; 'my own little darling lambs! To
think that God Almighty has sent you back again! Why, I'm like Job, my
lass; I lost them five-and-forty years ago;--ay, but it seems only
five-and-forty days. Oh! my own beautiful little lads. I kicked sore
against losing them, I did indeed, my lass, poor silly fool that I was!
and now here's God given me them back again. I'm a regular old Job now,
ain't I? Not that I was patient, like him; he was a sight better than
me--a sight better. Oh, you dear things, won't your grandmother love
you!'
'Had you twins of your own, grandmother?' asked her daughter-in-law.
'Ay, my dear, that I had, and little lads, too--the finest children you
ever saw; why, it was the talk of the country-side, my dear, what
beautiful bairns they was.'
'And how old were they when you lost them, grandmother?'
'Why, my dear,' said the old woman, '_my_ child was ten months and one
week old, and _his_ child was ten months and three weeks old--just a
fortnight's difference, my dear.'
'I thought you said they were _both_ yours, grandmother,' said Poppy.
'Ay, my darling, so they was; but that was how we got to talk of them.
You see, me and my master had been married nigh on five years, and
never had no childer (we lived up at the farm at that time), and then
these babies came, and I think our heads were fairly turned by
them--_he_ was well-nigh crazed, he was indeed, my dear. "Sally," he
says, when he came in to look at them, "you pick one and I'll have the
other--half-and-half, that's fair share," he says. "Now, Sally, you
choose first."
'"Well," says I, "I'll have the ginger-haired one; it's most like me." I
used to have ginger hair, my dear; you wouldn't believe it, for it's all
turned white now, but I had, just like Poppy there, beautiful ginger
hair. Some folks don't like the colour, my dear, but your grandfather
used to like it. Why, he said when he was courting me that my hair was
the colour of marigolds, and they was always his favourite flowers; he
had, 'em in his own little garden when he was a tiny lad, he said.
'Well, I picked the one with ginger hair, and called it _my_ child, and
he picked the black-haired one, which was the very picture of him--why,
he had a head like a crow's back, my dear. And so we each had a baby of
our own, and would you believe it, my lass, he took that care of it,
you'd have thought he was an old nurse--you would indeed. He washed it
and he dressed it,--ay, but I did laugh the first time,--and he gave it
the bottle, and he got a little girl from the village to come and mind
it when he was out, and in the evening we sat one on each side of the
fire, he with his child, and I with mine; and then at night, when we
went to bed, his bairn slept in _his_ arms, and my bairn slept in mine.
Well then we had them christened, and his was Jacky and mine was Jemmy,
and he _was_ proud of his child that day--as proud as Punch; he was
indeed, my dear. He carried him all the way--Oh, dear! oh, dear! what
_have_ I done!' said the old woman, as she turned to the bed and saw
Poppy's mother in tears.
'Why, you're crying, my dear; I oughtn't to have told you. What a silly
old goose I am! I ought to have remembered that lad of mine, and how
he's gone and left you, instead of giving a hand with his own babies, as
my master did. Dear me, dear me, whatever was I thinking of?'
'Oh, granny,' said her daughter-in-law, 'do tell me about them; I like
to hear--I do indeed; please go on.'
'Well, my dear, if you _will_ have it so, I'll go on. They grew up
beautiful babies, they did indeed, and didn't folks admire them!
There's lots of people drives through our village when it's the
season at Scarborough; they takes carriages, my dear, and they come
driving out with lads in red jackets riding on them poor tired
horses--"post-williams," I think they call them. I'm telling you no
lie, my dear, when I tell you them little lads has brought in scores
of threepenny bits that the ladies have thrown them from their
carriages, when the girl took them out by the lodge gate; they was
so taken with the pretty dears, they was.
'Well, all went on well, my lass, till the teeth began to come,--oh,
them teeth, what a nuisance they are! I've lost mine, my dear, all but
two, and I'm sure it's a good job to have done with 'em--they're nothing
but bother, always aching and breaking and worrying you. Well, the
teething went very hard with the babies; his child was the worst,
though, and one day little Jacky had a convulsion fit, and didn't my
master send off for the doctor in a hurry; and all that night he sat up
watching his bairn, for fear it should have another fit. Doctor came
once or twice after that, for the little lad kept poorly, though the
fits did not come back.
'"Ay, doctor," I says one day, when he had little Jack in his arms, and
was saying what a pretty boy he was--"Ay, doctor," I says, "but look at
_my_ child," and I held up little Jemmy. "_He's_ the beauty now, isn't
he, doctor?"
'"You're very fond of that boy, aren't you?" says doctor.
'"Fond of him! Why, doctor," I says, "I love him till I often think I
could go bare-foot all my life and live on bread and water if it would
do him a bit of good."
'"Take care you don't love him too much," says doctor, looking quite
grave; "folks mustn't make idols even of their own bairns. Don't be
offended, missis," he says, "but it doesn't do to set your heart too
much on anything, not even on your own little lad: you might lose him,
you know."
'Well, I was huffy with doctor after that; I was a bit put out, and I
says, "Well, doctor, if I thought I was going to lose him I would love
him a hundred times better than ever." So, my dear, doctor shook his
head at me and went away, and (would you believe it!) only five hours
after I had to send for him all in a hurry to come to _my_ child. He'd
taken a fit like Jacky had; but oh! my dear, he didn't come out of it as
Jacky did; it was a sore, sore fit, and before doctor could get to
him--and he ran all the way from the village--my bonny bairn was gone.'
'Oh, grandmother, you _would_ feel that,' said Poppy's mother.
'Yes, my dear, I did indeed; and when bedtime came, and he had _his_
child laid aside him, and _my_ child was laid dead in the best room
downstairs, I felt as if my heart would break. He wanted me to take
_his_ child, but little Jacky was used to father, and wouldn't come to
me, and, my dear, I cried myself to sleep.'
'And how much longer did the other baby live, grandmother?' said Poppy.
'Only fifteen days, my dear, and we buried 'em both in one little
grave,--I often go to look at it now;--and when we put _his_ child in,
and I saw my child's little coffin at the bottom of the grave, my dear,
I wished I could go in too.
'I was very hard and rebellious, ay, I was, I see it all now,' said
grandmother, wiping her eyes. 'But just to think of God giving 'em back
to me after five-and-forty years! Why, it's wonderful,' said the old
woman in a cheerful voice. '"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not
all His benefits." That's the verse for me, my dear, now, isn't it?'
And grandmother took up first Enoch and then Elijah, and kissed them and
hugged them as lovingly as ever she had kissed her own little babies.