Butler Ellis Parker
The Confessions of a Daddy

II. WHEN SHE CAME

Afore the kid come, me and Marthy used to sit up nights tellin’ each other how much we’d like it if she turned out to be a boy. I said everything that I knowed that was nice about boys, and drawed on my imagination for what I didn’t know, and Marthy spoke the same; so I convinced Marthy, thorough, that I would be terrible disappointed if it wasn’t a boy, and she didn’t leave me no doubts about her hankerin’ for a baby of the male sect.

Course we was both tryin’ to square ourselves in case it should be a boy. Come to find out, we was both of us tickled to death that it was a girl.

We’d talked over boys’ names by the bushel without ever coming to a dead-set choice, but we most always squeezed in somewhere, sort of apologetic, a remark that if it should happen to be a girl we’d have to call it Edith L., after its grandmother. Somehow, as I look back on it, it seems as if I’d never thought of that kid, at any time, except as Edith L. Curious how folks will try to fool theirselves that way.

When it come to the auspicious occasion we had Doc Wolfert in, because he was the only doc in our end of town. He certainly was a quaint old bone-setter. Some said he took morphine on the sly, and some said it was just his natural manner, but he was the shiftiest-eyed medic you ever saw. No man livin’ ever got him to say plain yes or no. He’d walk all ‘round them little words, like he was afraid of steppin’ on them, and his gab was full of perhapses and possiblys, and similar slick side-trackers of knowledge.

I had figgered that when the aforesaid auspicious occasion turned up I’d clean out to the woods until things got so I’d be useful as well as ornamental; but when it come to a show-down, I couldn’t. Farthest away I could git was the front porch. I done my good twenty miles on the porch that day, I’ll bet, and whenever I’ve had a trial and tribulation time since then, I can hear the sixth board from the south end of that porch squeak.

I was walkin’ on the level, but my spirits was climbin’ hills and coastin’ into valleys. First minute I would be stickin’ out my chest and thinkin’ how all-fired grand it would be to be a daddy, and the next minute I’d cave in like a frost-bitten squash and wonder how in creation I’d ever drag along as a widow-man. One minute I’d see myself sky-hootin’ round with a fine kid on my arm, and the next I’d see myself alone, with Marthy gone. I’ve got the reputation around here of being a humorist man, but I didn’t say no funny sayings to myself that day, that I can remember. I had fever, and cold sweats, and double contraction of the heart, and whenever I thought of Marthy, I couldn’t think of a decent thing that I’d ever done to her. I felt I was an ornery, lowdown critter – which I ain’t – and I saw Marthy as a spotless angel – which she ain’t neither. She’s woman and earthly all through, and mighty good earth at that. Marthy never knew what a good chance she lost of being considered a perfectionated saint, but she missed the chance.

Just about when I’d given up all hopes of ever seein’ Marthy alive again, Mrs. Murphy, (who we’d got in to sort of give the kid its first toilet, it not being expected to be far enough advanced to do much primping on its own account right at first) come to the door like a blessed ray of sunshine, and percolated out a smile at me.

Loony as I was, I had sense enough left to know that she wasn’t smilin’ at me for flirtation, nor because she had a smile that she didn’t know what to do with and so was passing it out to me, like a hand-out, just to git rid of it. I connected that smile with other things. I knowed she was smiling me back from a desolate widow-hood, or widow-man-hood, or whatever the right word is. I know the right word, but it’s got mislaid. Thank the stars I ain’t ever had no use for it, and I hope never to have. But I guess every man feels like I did when I was walkin’ that porch. When they shut the door on him, and turn him out, and tell him they will call him when they want him, he’s a widow-man right from that moment and feels so. And when they call him in and say all’s doin’ as well as could be expected under the circumstances, right then he feels like his wife had rose from the dead, and he becomes a married man again. I felt so, anyhow, and I don’t know as I’m a specially fancy feeler. I don’t look it.

Right then I was boosted, like I tell you, from a deep black hole to a high and airy location, and by a plain-faced, baggy Irish lady that did washing by the day at fifty cents a day, and you furnished the soap. She’s been my friend ever since, and always will be.

As I passed in, feelin’ more like war-whoopin’ than like walkin’ soft, she whispered three words at me that finished me up.

“It’s a girl,” says she. “Walk light, and stay where you are, and when you can come in and see the girl, I’ll bring her out and show her to you.”

I was clean idiotic with satisfaction. I sat down on the edge of a chair and twirled my hat until I couldn’t sit still, and then got up and edged round the room lookin’ at the pictures on the wall, for all the world like I was a visitor. I’d got half-way through lookin’ at the things on the what-not, and was castin’ my eye round for the photygraft album, when Mrs. Murphy stuck her blessed face into the parlor.

“‘Sh-h!” says she, “make no noise, and control your feelin’s, and you can come in for a quarter of a second and see your daughter.”

I was so proud I had cold chills, and I walked like a clothes-horse on castors.

I looked for Marthy first, and I see she was a-sleepin’ beautiful, and then Mrs. Murphy pulled down the covers and showed me Edith L.

I took her all in at a glance, and I formed my own opinion right there. I was like a rubber balloon when you stick a pin in it, but I didn’t collapse with a bang, I just caved in gradual. I went out of the room, and out of the house, and sat down on the porch-step and blubbered. They never missed me.

When I think back on that day it makes me laugh, but I was sure a rank amateur in the baby business, and I didn’t know no better then. Right now I’d put up every cent I’ve got that you couldn’t find a finer girl in the state than what Edith L. is, and I’ve learned since that she was what you might call an A-1 baby right from the start, but it didn’t look that way to me. She was the first of that age I’d ever been introduced to, and she looked different than what I’d fig-gered on. I’d seen plenty of brand new colts, and they run largely to legs, but you’d know them for horse-critters right off; and I ‘ve seen brand-new puppies, and their eyes ain’t open, but you’d know them immediate for dogs; but that kid didn’t look any more like what I’d calculated Edith L. would look like, than a cucumber looks like a water-melon. My heart was plumb broke. I was scairt when I thought what would happen to Marthy when she saw that wrinkled, red little thing.

I knew we’d have to keep it, but I didn’t see how we could bear the shame. I made up my mind in a minute that we’d sell off the place and move up into the mountains – just me and Marthy and the girl. I didn’t think of her as Edith L. any more. It wouldn’t do to insult mother by givin’ her name to that baby.

I figgered it all out how I’d act better to Marthy than ever, to make up for the trial that girl would be, and how I’d do all in man’s power to keep the girl from knowin’ how handicapped she was by her looks.

Just then Brink Tuomy passed by, and he says:

“How’s things comin’ along?”

The boys had all been mighty interested in this baby business, and I knew he’d trot off and tell them, so I says, sad enough:

“It’s a girl.”

Brink seen I wasn’t very jubilant, so he says:

“You don’t seem very stuck up about it. But girls ain’t so bad – when you git used to them. Lady all right?”

“Yes,” I says, “she’s O. K.”

Brink hung round a minute or two, waitin’ for further orders, and none comin’, he says, hesitatin’:

“So long!”

I let him go and was glad he went.

I looked out across the river, and calculated how I could fix it so Mrs. Murphy wouldn’t say nothin’ outside about that poor kid of mine, and how to keep the kid hid until me and Marthy could take her and skin out for the mountains.

Mrs. Murphy was a terrible chatty lady – sort of perpetual phonygraft, and wholesale and retail news agency. I guessed the best I could do was to lock her in the cellar and then herd all comers away from the house.

Doc Wolfert didn’t bother me any. I knowed he wouldn’t give me away.

If anybody could so much as git him to admit that there was a baby born at my house they would be lucky. Just as a sample of what Doc was like, take the case of Sandy Sam, who fell down the mine shaft and was brought up in the bucket, as dead as Adam. Doc was on the ground as soon as they brought Sandy up, and one of the boys that come late asked Doc what caused the crowd to congregate.