Part 42 (1/2)
They stopped down-stairs to get good and warm and take off their wraps.
Then Stephen led them up to the front room. It was a kind of library and sitting-room, but no one was there. In the window stood a beautiful vase of flowers. Hanny ran over to that. Roses at Christmastide were rare indeed. ”Here,” said Stephen, catching her arm gently.
She turned to the opposite corner. There was an old-fas.h.i.+oned mahogany cradle, black with age, and polished until it shone like gla.s.s. It was lined overhead with soft light-blue silk, and had lying across it a satin coverlet that had grown creamy with age, full of embroidered flowers dull and soft with their many years of bloom.
On the pillow lay her brother's Christmas gift that had come while the bells were still ringing out their message first heard on the plains of Judea.
”Oh!” with a soft, wondering cry. She knelt beside the cradle that had come from Holland a century and a half ago, and held many a Beekman baby. A strange little face with a tinge of redness in it, a round broad forehead with a mistiness of golden fuzz, a pretty dimpled chin and a mouth almost as round as a cherry. Just at that instant he opened the bluest of eyes, stared at Hanny with a grave aspect, tried to put his fist into his mouth and with a soft little sound dropped to sleep again.
A wordless sense of delight and mystery stole over the little girl. She seemed lifted up to Heaven's very gates. She reached out her hand and touched the little velvet fist, not much larger than her doll's, but oh, it had the exquisite inspiration of life and she felt the wonderful thrill to her very heart. Something given to them all that could love back when its time of loving came, when it knew of the fond hearts awaiting the sweetness of affection.
”That's my little boy,” said Stephen, with the great pride and joy of fatherhood. ”Dolly's and all of ours. Isn't it a Christmas worth having?”
”Oh!” she said again with a wordless delight in her heart, while her eyes were filled with tears, so deeply had the consciousness moved her.
There was a sort of poetical pathos in the little girl, sacred to love.
She had never known of any babies in the family save Cousin Retty's, and that had not appealed with this delicious nearness.
Stephen bent over and kissed her. Margaret came to look at the baby.
”He's a fine fellow!” said the new father. ”We wanted to surprise you,”
looking at Hanny and smiling. ”We made Joe promise not to tell you. And now you are all aunts and uncles, and we have a grandmother of our very own.”
”Oh!” This time Hanny laughed softly. There were no words expressive enough.
”And now you will have to knit him some little boots, and save your money to buy him Christmas gifts. And what's that new work--crochet him a cap. Dear me! how hard you will have to work.”
”There were such lovely little boots at Epiphany Fair. If I only had known! But I'm quite sure I can learn to make them;” her eyes lighting with antic.i.p.ation. ”Oh, when will he be big enough to hold?”
”In a month or so. You will have to come up on Sat.u.r.days and take care of him.”
”Can I? That will be just splendid.”
He was silent. He could not tease the little girl in the sacredness of her new, all-pervading love.
The nurse entered. She had a soft white kerchief pinned about her shoulders, and side puffs of hair done over little combs. She nodded to Margaret and said ”the baby was a very fine child, and that Mrs.
Underhill was sleeping restfully. They had been so glad to have Mr.
Underhill's mother.” Then she patted the blanket over the baby, and said ”it had been worked for his great, great grandmother, and they put it over every Beekman baby for good luck.”
Margaret declared they must return. Mother was tired, and the Archers were coming up to dinner after church.
”Could I kiss it just once?” asked Hanny timidly.
”Oh, yes.” The nurse smiled and turned down the blanket, and the baby opened his eyes.
Hanny felt that in some mysterious manner he knew she loved him. Her lips touched the soft little cheek, the tiny hands.
”He's very good now,” said the nurse; ”but he can cry tremendously. He has strong lungs.”
Stephen took them back and then went down to Father Beekman's. There was so much to do, the little girl and the big girl were both busy enough, helping mother. The boys and her father had gone out, but they had all heard the wonderful tidings.