Helen's Babies, John Habberton [beginner reading books for adults .TXT] 📗

found it addressed in my sister's writing, and promising a more voluminous letter than that lady had ever before honored me with. I opened it, dropping an enclosure which doubtless was a list of necessities which I would please pack, etc., and read as follows:--


"JULY 1, 1875.

"MY DEAR OLD BROTHER:--WOULDN'T I like to give you the warmest of sisterly hugs? I can't believe it, and yet I'm in ecstasies over it. To think that you should have got that perfection of a girl, who has declined so many great catches--YOU, my sober, business-like, unromantic big brother--oh, it's too wonderful! But now I think of it, you're just the people for each other. I'd like to say that it's just what I'd always longed for, and that I invited you to Hillcrest to bring it about; but the trouble with such a story would be that it wouldn't have a word of truth in it. You always DID have a faculty of doing just what you pleased, and what nobody ever expected you to do, but now you've exceeded yourself.

"And to think that my little darlings played an important part in bringing it all about! I shall take the credit for THAT, for if it hadn't been for me, who would have helped you, sir? I shall expect you to remember both of them handsomely at Christmas.

"I don't believe I'm guilty of a breach of confidence in sending the enclosed, which I have just received from my sister-in-law that is to be. It will tell you some causes of your success of which you, with a man's conceit, haven't imagined for a minute, and it will tell you, too, of a maiden's first and natural fear under such circumstances,--a fear which I know that you, with your honest, generous heart, will hasten to dispel. As you're a man, you're quite likely to be too stupid to read what's written between the lines; so I'd better tell you that Alice's fear is that in letting herself go so easily she may have seemed to lack proper reserve and self-respect. You don't need to be told that no woman alive has more of these very qualities.

"Bless your dear old heart, Harry,--you deserve to be shaken to death if you're not the happiest man alive. I MUST hurry home and see you both with my own eyes, and learn to believe that all this wonderful glorious thing has come to pass. Give Alice a sister's kiss from me (if you know how to give more than one kind), and give my cherubs a hundred each from the mother that wants to see them so much.

"With love and congratulations,

"HELEN."

The other letter, which I opened with considerable reverence and more delight, ran as follows:--


"HILLCREST, June 29, 1875.

"DEAR FRIEND HELEN:--Something has happened, and I am very happy, but I am more than a little troubled over it, too, and as you are one of the persons nearly concerned, I am going to confess to you as soon as possible. Harry--your brother, I mean--will be sure to tell you very soon, if he hasn't done so already, and I want to make all possible haste to solemnly assure you that _I_ hadn't the slightest idea of such a thing coming to pass, and I didn't do the slightest thing to bring it about.

"I always thought your brother was a splendid fellow, and have never been afraid to express my mind about him, when there was no one but girls to listen. But out here I've somehow learned to admire him more than ever. I cheerfully acquit HIM of intentionally doing anything to create a favorable impression; if his several appearances before me HAVE been studied, he is certainly the most original being I ever heard of. Your children are angels--you've told me so yourself, and I've my own very distinct impression on the subject, but they DON'T study to save their uncle's appearance. The figures that unfortunate man has cut several times--well, I won't try to describe them on paper, for fear he might some day see a scrap of it, and take offense. But he always seems to be patient with them, and devoted to them, and I haven't been able to keep from seeing that a man who could be so lovable with thoughtless and unreasonable children must be perfectly adorable to the woman he loved, if she were a woman at all. Still, I hadn't the faintest idea that I would be the fortunate woman. At last THE day came, but I was in blissful ignorance of what was to happen. Your little Charley hurt himself, and insisted upon Har--your brother singing an odd song to him; and just when the young gentleman was doing the elegant to a dozen of us ladies at once, too! If you COULD have seen his face!--it was too funny, until he got over his annoyance, and began to feel properly sorry for the little fellow--then he seemed all at once to be all tenderness and heart, and I DID wish for a moment that conventionalities didn't exist, and I might tell him that he was a model. Then your youngest playfully spilt a plate of soup on my dress (don't be worried--'twas only a common muslin, and 'twill wash). Of course I had to change it, and as I retired the happy thought struck me that I'd make so elaborate a toilet that I wouldn't finish in time to join the other ladies for the usual evening walk; consequence, I would have a chance to monopolize a gentleman for half an hour or more--a chance which, no thanks to the gentlemen who don't come to Hillcrest, no lady here has had this season. Every time I peered through the blinds to see if the other girls had started, I could see HIM, looking so distressed, and brooding over those two children as if he was their mother, and he seemed so good. He seemed pleased to see ME when I appeared, and coming from such a man, the implied compliment was fully appreciated; everything he said to me seemed a little more worth hearing than if it had come from any man not so good. Then suddenly your eldest insisted on retailing the result of a conversation he had had with his uncle, and the upshot was that Harry declared himself; he wasn't romantic a bit, but he was real straightforward and manly, while I was so completely taken aback that I couldn't think of a thing to say. Then the impudent fellow kissed me, and I lost my tongue worse than ever. If I had known anything of his feelings beforehand, I should have been prepared to behave more properly; but--O Helen, I'm so glad I DIDN'T know! I should be the happiest being that ever lived, if I wasn't afraid that you and your husband might think that I had given myself away too hastily. As to other people, we will see that they don't know a word about it for months to come.

"DO write that I was not to blame, and make believe accept me as a sister, because I CAN'T offer to give Harry up to any one else you may have picked out for him.

"Your sincere friend,

"ALICE MAYTON."

Was there ever so delightful a reveille? All the boyishness in me seemed suddenly to come to the surface, and instead of saying and doing the decorous things which novelists' heroes do under similar circumstances, I shouted "Hurrah!" and danced into the children's room so violently that Budge sat up in bed, and regarded me with reproving eyes, while Toddie burst into a happy laugh, and volunteered as a partner in the dance. Then I realized that the rain was over, and the sun was shining--I could take Alice out for another drive, and until then the children could take care of themselves. I remembered suddenly, and with a sharp pang, that my vacation was nearly at an end, and I found myself consuming with impatience to know how much longer Alice would remain at Hillcrest. It would be cruel to wish her in the city before the end of August, yet I--

"Uncle Harry," said Budge, "my papa says 'tisn't nice for folks to sit down and go to thinkin' before they've brushed their hair mornin's--that's what he tells ME."

"I beg your pardon, Budge," said I, springing up in some confusion; "I was thinking over a matter of a great deal of importance."

"What was it--my goat?"

"No--of course not. Don't be silly, Budge."

"Well, I think about him a good deal, an' I don't think it's silly a bit. I hope he'll go to heaven when he dies. Do angels have goat-carriages, Uncle Harry?"

"No, old fellow--they can go about without carriages."

"When _I_ goesh to hebben," said Toddie, rising in bed, "Izhe goin' to have lots of goat-cawidjes an' Izhe goin' to tate all ze andjels a widen."

With many other bits of prophecy and celestial description I was regaled as I completed my toilet, and I hurried out of doors for an opportunity to think without disturbance. Strolling past the henyard I saw a meditative turtle, and picking him up and shouting to my nephews I held the reptile up for their inspection. Their window-blinds flew open, and a unanimous though not exactly harmonious "Oh!" greeted my prize.

"Where did you get it, Uncle Harry?" asked Budge.

"Down by the hen-coop."

Budge's eyes opened wide; he seemed to devote a moment to profound thought, and then he exclaimed:--

"Why, I don't see how the hens COULD lay such a big thing--just put him in your hat till I come down, will you?"

I dropped the turtle in Budge's wheelbarrow, and made a tour of the flower-borders. The flowers, always full of suggestion to me, seemed suddenly to have new charms and powers; they actually impelled me to try to make rhymes,--me, a steady white-goods salesman! The impulse was too strong to be resisted, though I must admit that the results were pitifully meager:--

"As radiant as that matchless rose
Which poet-artists fancy;
As fair as whitest lily-blows,
As modest as the pansy;
As pure as dew which hides within
Aurora's sun-kissed chalice;
As tender as the primrose sweet--
All this, and more, is Alice."

In inflicting this fragment upon the reader, I have not the faintest idea that he can discover any merit in it; I quote it only that a subsequent experience of mine may be more intelligible. When I had composed these wretched lines I became conscious that I had neither pencil nor paper wherewith to preserve them. Should I lose them--my first self-constructed poem? Never! This was not the first time in which I had found it necessary to preserve words by memory alone. So I repeated my ridiculous lines over and over again, until the eloquent feeling of which they were the graceless expression inspired me to accompany my recital with gestures. Six--eight--ten--a dozen--twenty times I repeated these lines, each time with additional emotion and gestures, when a thin voice, very near me, remarked:--

"Ocken Hawwy, you does djust as if you was swimmin'."

Turning, I beheld my nephew Toddie--how long he had been behind me I had no idea. He looked earnestly into my eyes and then remarked:--

"Ocken Hawwy, your faysh is wed, djust like a wosy-posy."