akfast that
he had a little daughter. (We never tell him disturbing, exciting
things just _before_ meals.) And then Nurse told him.

I asked what he said, and Nurse laughed and gave her funny little
shrug to her shoulders.

"Yes, what did he say, indeed?" she retorted. "He frowned, looked kind
of dazed, then muttered: 'Well, well, upon my soul! Yes, to be sure!'"

Then he came in to see me.

I don't know, of course, what he thought of me, but I guess he didn't
think much of me, from what Nurse said. Of course I was very, very
small, and I never yet saw a little bit of a baby that was pretty, or
looked as if it was much account. So maybe you couldn't really blame
him.

Nurse said he looked at me, muttered, "Well, well, upon my soul!"
again, and seemed really quite interested till they started to put me
in his arms. Then he threw up both hands, backed off, and cried, "Oh,
no, no!" He turned to Mother and hoped she was feeling pretty well,
then he got out of the room just as quick as he could. And Nurse said
that was the end of it, so far as paying any more attention to me was
concerned for quite a while.

He was much more interested in his new star than he was in his new
daughter. We were both born the same night, you see, and that star was
lots more consequence than I was. But, then, that's Father all over.
And that's one of the things, I think, that bothers Mother. I heard
her say once to Father that she didn't see why, when there were so
many, many stars, a paltry one or two more need to be made such a fuss
about. And _I_ don't, either.

But Father just groaned, and shook his head, and threw up his hands,
and looked _so_ tired. And that's all he said. That's all he says lots
of times. But it's enough. It's enough to make you feel so small
and mean and insignificant as if you were just a little green worm
crawling on the ground. Did you ever feel like a green worm crawling
on the ground? It's not a pleasant feeling at all.

Well, now, about the name. Of course they had to begin to talk about
naming me pretty soon; and Nurse said they did talk a lot. But they
couldn't settle it. Nurse said that that was about the first thing
that showed how teetotally utterly they were going to disagree about
things.

Mother wanted to call me Viola, after her mother, and Father wanted to
call me Abigail Jane after his mother; and they wouldn't either one
give in to the other. Mother was sick and nervous, and cried a lot
thos