Part 18

“Well, the Irish bogs are not always easy travelling,” I answered, “but the Sally-baby will soon be old enough to feel the spring of the Irish turf under her feet.”

“What will the chickens and ducklings and pigeons do while we are gone?” asked Francie.

“An’ the lammies?” piped the Sally-baby, who has all the qualities of Mary in the immortal lyric.

“Oh! we won’t leave home until the spring has come and all the young things are born. The grass will be green, the dandelions will have their puff-balls on, the apple blossoms will be over, and Daddy will get a kind man to take care of everything for us. It will be May time and we will sail in a big ship over to the aunts and uncles in Scotland and Ireland and I shall show them my children—”

“And we shall play ‘hide-and-go-coop’ with their children,” interrupted Francie joyously.

“They will never have heard of that game, but you will all play together!” And here I leaned back on the warm haycock and blinked my eyes a bit in moist anticipation of happiness to come. “There will be eight-year-old Ronald MacDonald to climb and ride and sail with our Billy; and there will be little Penelope who is named for me, and will be Francie’s playmate; and the new little boy baby—”

“Proba’ly Aunt Francie’s new boy baby will grow up and marry our girl one,” suggested Billy.

“He has my consent to the alliance in advance,” said Himself, “but I dare say your mother has arranged it all in her own mind and my advice will not be needed.”

“I have not arranged anything,” I retorted; “or if I have it was nothing more than a thought of young Ronald or Jack La Touche in—another quarter,”—this with discreetly veiled emphasis.

“What is another quarter, mother?” inquired Francie, whose mental agility is somewhat embarrassing.

“Oh, why,—well,—it is any other place than the one you are talking about. Do you see?”

“Not so very well, but p’r’aps I will in a minute.”

“Hope springs eternal!” quoted Francie’s father.

“And then, as I was saying before being interrupted by the entire family, we will go and visit the Irish cousins, Jackeen and Broona, who belong to Aunt Salemina and Uncle Gerald, and the Sally-baby will be the centre of attraction because she is her Aunt Salemina’s godchild—”

“But we are all God’s children,” insisted Billy.

“Of course we are.”

“What’s the difference between a god-child and a God’s child?”

“The bottle of chloroform is in the medicine closet, my poor dear; shall I run and get it?” murmured Himself sotto voce.

“Every child is a child of God,” I began helplessly, “and when she is somebody’s godchild she—oh! lend me your handkerchief, Billy!”

“Is it the nose-bleed, mother?” he asked, bending over me solicitously.

“No, oh, no! it’s nothing at all, dear. Perhaps the hay was going to make me sneeze. What was I saying?”

“About the god—”

“Oh, yes! I remember! (Ka-choo!) We will take the Irish cousins and the Scotch cousins and go all together to see the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. We’ll go to Bushey Park and see the chestnuts in bloom, and will dine at Number 10, Dovermarle Street—”

“I shall not go there, Billy,” said Himself. “It was at Number 10, Dovermarle Street that your mother told me she wouldn’t marry me; or at least that she’d have to do a lot of thinking before she’d say Yes; so she left London and went to North Malvern.”

“Couldn’t she think in London?” (This was Billy.)

“Didn’t she always want to be married to you?” (This was Francie.)

“Not always.”

“Didn’t she like us?” (Still Francie.)