On the day Cyril Henshaw's twins were six months old, a momentous
occurrence marked the date with a flaming red letter of remembrance;
and it all began with a baby's smile.
Cyril, in quest of his wife at about ten o'clock that morning, and not
finding her, pursued his search even to the nursery--a room he very
seldom entered. Cyril did not like to go into the nursery. He felt ill
at ease, and as if he were away from home--and Cyril was known to abhor
being away from home since he was married. Now that Marie had taken over
the reins of government again, he had been obliged to see very little
of those strange women and babies. Not but that he liked the babies, of
course. They were his sons, and he was proud of them. They should have
every advantage that college, special training, and travel could give
them. He quite anticipated what they would be to him--when they really
knew anything. But, of course, _now_, when they could do nothing but
cry and wave their absurd little fists, and wobble their heads in so
fearsome a manner, as if they simply did not know the meaning of the
word backbone--and, for that matter, of course they didn't--why, he
could not be expected to be anything but relieved when he had his den to
himself again, with a reasonable chance of finding his manuscript as
he had left it, and not cut up into a ridiculous string of paper dolls
holding hands, as he had once found it, after a visit from a woman with
a small girl.
Since Marie had been at the helm, however, he had not been troubled in
such a way. He had, indeed, known almost his old customary peace and
freedom from interruption, with only an occasional flitting across his
path of the strange women and babies--though he had realized, of course,
that they were in the house, especially in the nursery. For that reason,
therefore, he always avoided the nursery when possible. But to-day he
wanted his wife, and his wife was not to be found anywhere else in the
house. So, reluctantly, he turned his steps toward the nursery, and,
with a frown, knocked and pushed open the door.
“Is Mrs. Henshaw here?” he demanded, not over gently.
Absolute silence greeted his question. The man saw then that there was
no one in the room save a baby sitting on a mat in the middle of the
floor, barricaded on all sides with pillows.
With a deeper frown the man turned to go, when a gleeful “Ah--goo!”
halted his steps midway. He wheeled sharply.
“Er--eh?” he queried, uncertainly eyeing his small son on the floor.
“Ah--goo!” observed the infant (who had been very lonesome), with
greater emphasis; and this time he sent into his father's eyes the most
bewitching of smiles.
“Well, by George!” murmured the man, weakly, a dawning amazement driving
the frown from his face.
“Spgggh--oo--wah!” gurgled the boy, holding out two tiny fists.
A slow smile came to the man's face.
“Well, I'll--be--darned,” he muttered half-shamefacedly, wholly
delightedly. “If the rascal doesn't act as if he--knew me!”
“Ah--goo--spggghh!” grinned the infant, toothlessly, but entrancingly.
With almost a stealthy touch Cyril closed the door back of him, and
advanced a little dubiously toward his son. His countenance carried a
mixture of guilt, curiosity, and dogged determination so ludicrous that
it was a pity none but baby eyes could see it. As if to meet more
nearly on a level this baffling new acquaintance, Cyril got to his
knees--somewhat stiffly, it must be confessed--and faced his son.
“Goo--eee--ooo--yah!” crowed the baby now, thrashing legs and arms about
in a transport of joy at the acquisition of this new playmate.
“Well, well, young man, you--you don't say so!” stammered the
growingly-proud father, thrusting a plainly timid and unaccustomed
finger toward his offspring. “So you do know me, eh? Well, who am I?”
“Da--da!” gurgled the boy, triumphantly clutching the outstretched
finger, and holding on with a tenacity that brought a gleeful chuckle to
the lips of the man.
“Jove! but aren't you the strong little beggar, though! Needn't tell me
you don't know a good thing when you see it! So I'm 'da-da,' am I?”
he went on, unhesitatingly accepting as the pure gold of knowledge the
shameless imitation vocabulary his son was foisting upon him. “Well, I
expect I am, and--”
“Oh, Cyril!” The door had opened, and Marie was in the room. If she gave
a start of surprise at her husband's unaccustomed attitude, she quickly
controlled herself. “Julia said you wanted me. I must have been going
down the back stairs when you came up the front, and--”
“Please, Mrs. Henshaw, is it Dot you have in here, or Dimple?” asked a
new voice, as the second nurse entered by another door.
Before Mrs. Henshaw could answer, Cyril, who had got to his feet, turned
sharply.
“Is it--_who_?” he demanded.
“Oh! Oh, Mr. Henshaw,” stammered the girl. “I beg your pardon. I didn't
know you were here. It was only that I wanted to know which baby it was.
We thought we had Dot with us, until--”
“Dot! Dimple!” exploded the man. “Do you mean to say you have given my
_sons_ the ridiculous names of '_Dot_' and '_Dimple_'?”
“Why, no--yes--well, that is--we had to call them something,” faltered
the nurse, as with a despairing glance at her mistress, she plunged
through the doorway.
Cyril turned to his wife.
“Marie, what is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“Why, Cyril, dear, don't--don't get so wrought up,” she begged. “It's
only as Mary said, we _had_ to call them something, and--”
“Wrought up, indeed!” interrupted Cyril, savagely. “Who wouldn't be?
'Dot' and 'Dimple'! Great Scott! One would think those boys were a
couple of kittens or puppies; that they didn't know anything--didn't
have any brains! But they have--if the other is anything like this one,
at least,” he declared, pointing to his son on the floor, who, at
this opportune moment joined in the conversation to the extent of an
appropriate “Ah--goo--da--da!”
“There, hear that, will you?” triumphed the father. “What did I tell
you? That's the way he's been going on ever since I came into the room;
The little rascal knows me--so soon!”
Marie clapped her fingers to her lips and turned her back suddenly,
with a spasmodic little cough; but her husband, if he noticed the
interruption, paid no heed.
“Dot and Dimple, indeed!” he went on wrathfully. “That settles it. We'll
name those boys to-day, Marie, _to-day!_ Not once again will I let the
sun go down on a Dot and a Dimple under my roof.”
Marie turned with a quick little cry of happiness.
“Oh, Cyril, I'm so glad! I've so wanted to have them named, you know!
And shall we call them Franz and Felix, as we'd talked?”
“Franz, Felix, John, James, Paul, Charles--anything, so it's sane and
sensible! I'd even adopt Calderwell's absurd Bildad and--er--Tomdad, or
whatever it was, rather than have those poor little chaps insulted a
day longer with a 'Dot' and a 'Dimple.' Great Scott!” And, entirely
forgetting what he had come to the nursery for, Cyril strode from the
room.
“Ah--goo--spggggh!” commented baby from the middle of the floor.
It was on a very windy March day that Bertram Henshaw's son, Bertram,
Jr., arrived at the Strata. Billy went so far into the Valley of the
Shadow of Death for her baby that it was some days before she realized
in all its importance the presence of the new member of her family. Even
when the days had become weeks, and Bertram, Jr., was a month and a
half old, the extreme lassitude and weariness of his young mother was a
source of ever-growing anxiety to her family and friends. Billy was so
unlike herself, they all said.
“If something could only rouse her,” suggested the Henshaw's old
family physician one day. “A certain sort of mental shock--if not too
severe--would do the deed, I think, and with no injury--only benefit.
Her physical condition is in just the state that needs a stimulus to
stir it into new life and vigor.”
As it happened, this was said on a certain Monday. Two days later
Bertram's sister Kate, on her way with her husband to Mr. Hartwell's old
home in Vermont, stopped over in Boston for a two days' visit. She made
her headquarters at Cyril's home, but very naturally she went, without
much delay, to pay her respects to Bertram, Jr.
“Mr. Hartwell's brother isn't well,” she explained to Billy, after
the greetings were over. “You know he's the only one left there, since
Mother and Father Hartwell came West. We shall go right on up to Vermont
in a couple of days, but we just had to stay over long enough to see the
baby; and we hadn't ever seen the twins, either, you know. By the way,
how perfectly ridiculous Cyril is over those boys!”
“Is he?” smiled Billy, faintly.
“Yes. One would think there were never any babies born before, to hear
him talk. He thinks they're the most wonderful things in the world--and
they are cunning little fellows, I'll admit. But Cyril thinks they
_know_ so much,” went on Kate, laughingly. “He's always bragging of
something one or the other of them has done. Think of it--_Cyril!_ Marie
says it all started from the time last January when he discovered the
nurses had been calling them Dot and Dimple.”
“Yes, I know,” smiled Billy again, faintly, lifting a thin, white, very
un-Billy-like hand to her head.
Kate frowned, and regarded her sister-in-law thoughtfully.
“Mercy! how you look, Billy!” she exclaimed, with cheerful tactlessness.
“They said you did, but, I declare, you look worse than I thought.”
Billy's pale face reddened perceptibly.
“Nonsense! It's just that I'm so--so tired,” she insisted. “I shall be
all right soon. How did you leave the children?”
“Well, and happy--'specially little Kate, because mother was going away.
Kate is mistress, you know, when I'm gone, and she takes herself very
seriously.”
“Mistress! A little thing like her! Why, she can't be more than ten or
eleven,” murmured Billy.
“She isn't. She was ten last month. But you'd think she was forty, the
airs she gives herself, sometimes. Oh, of course there's Nora, and the
cook, and Miss Winton, the governess, there to really manage things,
and Mother Hartwell is just around the corner; but little Kate _thinks_
she's managing, so she's happy.”
Billy suppressed a smile. Billy was thinking that little Kate came
naturally by at least one of her traits.
“Really, that child is impossible, sometimes,” resumed Mrs. Hartwell,
with a sigh. “You know the absurd things she was always saying two or
three years ago, when we came on to Cyril's wedding.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, I thought she would get over it. But she doesn't. She's worse, if
anything; and sometimes her insight, or intuition, or whatever you may
call it, is positively uncanny. I never know what she's going to remark
next, when I take her anywhere; but it's safe to say, whatever it is,
it'll be unexpected and _usually_ embarrassing to somebody. And--is
that the baby?” broke off Mrs. Hartwell, as a cooing laugh and a woman's
voice came from the next room.
“Yes. The nurse has just brought him in, I think,” said Billy.
“Then I'll go right now and see him,” rejoined Kate, rising to her feet
and hurrying into the next room.
Left alone, Billy lay back wearily in her reclining-chair. She wondered
why Kate always tired her so. She wished she had had on her blue kimono,
then perhaps Kate would not have thought she looked so badly. Blue was
always more becoming to her than--
Billy turned her head suddenly. From the next room had come Kate's
clear-cut, decisive voice.
“Oh, no, I don't think he looks a bit like his father. That little
snubby nose was never the Henshaw nose.”
Billy drew in her breath sharply, and pulled herself half erect in her
chair. From the next room came Kate's voice again, after a low murmur
from the nurse.
“Oh, but he isn't, I tell you. He isn't one bit of a Henshaw baby! The
Henshaw babies are always _pretty_ ones. They have more hair, and they
look--well, different.”
Billy gave a low cry, and struggled to her feet.
“Oh, no,” spoke up Kate, in answer to another indistinct something from
the nurse. “I don't think he's near as pretty as the twins. Of
course the twins are a good deal older, but they have such a _bright_
look,--and they did have, from the very first. I saw it in their tiniest
baby pictures. But this baby--”
“_This_ baby is _mine_, please,” cut in a tremulous, but resolute voice;
and Mrs. Hartwell turned to confront Bertram, Jr.'s mother, manifestly
weak and trembling, but no less manifestly blazing-eyed and determined.
“Why, Billy!” expostulated Mrs. Hartwell, as Billy stumbled forward and
snatched the child into her arms.
“Perhaps he doesn't look like the Henshaw babies. Perhaps he isn't as
pretty as the twins. Perhaps he hasn't much hair, and does have a snub
nose. He's my baby just the same, and I shall not stay calmly by and see
him abused! Besides, _I_ think he's prettier than the twins ever thought
of being; and he's got all the hair I want him to have, and his nose
is just exactly what a baby's nose ought to be!” And, with a superb
gesture, Billy turned and bore the baby away.