s hand the heavy boot and clinking spur; off with belt and
buckle and scratching shoulder-strap, and don your softest dressing-gown
and creakless slipper; submit to search for pins and needles you never
carried; promise you will only talk just so much, and stay only just so
long, and will sit only just in such a place and won't attempt to
agitate her, "for we must still be very, very careful," and at last you
are admitted, and you kneel by the white bed and hear the rapturous
ecstasy of welcome in her faint voice, and read of her sacred martyrdom
in the white cheek and fragile hand, and glory in the pride and joy of
that wondering, wonderful mother-look in the great, deep, lustrous eyes,
and kiss again the warm, sweet lips that are heaven's nectar to the
thirst of yours; and then--and then there is revealed to you that
little, wrinkled, ruddy head, all folds and puckers and creases, all the
redder and uglier for contrast with the snowy bosom in which it twists
and burrows, and those expressionless, saucer-blue, liquid, blinking
little eyes, and tiny upturned nose, and puckering, gurgling, querulous
mouth,--all that is visible from the folds of the white blanket worn as
only Indian and baby _can_ wear one; and you are bidden to declare that
he is the very, very image of you, bless his honeyed lips! and then you
must take him one minute,--nurse must let her see Jack with his baby
boy in his arms!--and though fearful, you assent, and with reverent,
prayerful gratitude, you receive your first-born to your heart, and
thank God for the infinite mercy that has brought her, the sweet young
wife and mother, through her deadly peril, and then you would kiss the
helpless, staring, blinking, little blanket-framed face; but at first
touch of those bristling moustaches a powerful spasm has convulsed the
tiny features, and a vehement, plaintive, wailing protest bursts from
the contorted lips, and then your son and heir is snatched away, and you
stand like convicted felon, while nursey dandles and tosses and condoles
and condones and cuddles. "Well, well, well, _did_ it nearly fighten its
pessus, pessus life out with its horrid, awful, uggy beard? Well, it
never, never sall aden, _never_! No, nursey wouldn't let it." That's it,
Jack; sit down and make the best of it. Your reign as lord and master is
over and done with. Lo! Baby is king, and Mrs. Muggins is his prime
minister!
But, down in the pretty parlor, the returning soldier is sti
|