Bab Bab 28 · DOMESTIC EXPERIENCES

. DOMESTIC EXPERIENCES

Like most other young matrons, Meg began her married life with the

determination to be a model housekeeper. John should find home a

paradise, he should always see a smiling face, should fare sumptuously

every day, and never know the loss of a button. She brought so much

love, energy, and cheerfulness to the work that she could not but

succeed, in spite of some obstacles. Her paradise was not a tranquil

one, for the little woman fussed, was over-anxious to please, and

bustled about like a true Martha, cumbered with many cares. She was too

tired, sometimes, even to smile, John grew dyspeptic after a course of

dainty dishes and ungratefully demanded plain fare. As for buttons, she

soon learned to wonder where they went, to shake her head over the

carelessness of men, and to threaten to make him sew them on himself,

and see if his work would stand impatient and clumsy fingers any better

than hers.

They were very happy, even after they discovered that they couldn’t

live on love alone. John did not find Meg’s beauty diminished, though

she beamed at him from behind the familiar coffee pot. Nor did Meg miss

any of the romance from the daily parting, when her husband followed up

his kiss with the tender inquiry, “Shall I send some veal or mutton for

dinner, darling?” The little house ceased to be a glorified bower, but

it became a home, and the young couple soon felt that it was a change

for the better. At first they played keep-house, and frolicked over it

like children. Then John took steadily to business, feeling the cares

of the head of a family upon his shoulders, and Meg laid by her cambric

wrappers, put on a big apron, and fell to work, as before said, with

more energy than discretion.

While the cooking mania lasted she went through Mrs. Cornelius’s

Receipt Book as if it were a mathematical exercise, working out the

problems with patience and care. Sometimes her family were invited in

to help eat up a too bounteous feast of successes, or Lotty would be

privately dispatched with a batch of failures, which were to be

concealed from all eyes in the convenient stomachs of the little

Hummels. An evening with John over the account books usually produced a

temporary lull in the culinary enthusiasm, and a frugal fit would

ensue, during which the poor man was put through a course of bread

pudding, hash, and warmed-over coffee, which tried his soul, although

he bore it with praiseworthy fortitude. Before the golden mean was

found, however, Meg added to her domestic possessions what young

couples seldom get on long without, a family jar.

Fired with a housewifely wish to see her storeroom stocked with

homemade preserves, she undertook to put up her own currant jelly. John

was requested to order home a dozen or so of little pots and an extra

quantity of sugar, for their own currants were ripe and were to be

attended to at once. As John firmly believed that ‘my wife’ was equal

to anything, and took a natural pride in her skill, he resolved that

she should be gratified, and their only crop of fruit laid by in a most

pleasing form for winter use. Home came four dozen delightful little

pots, half a barrel of sugar, and a small boy to pick the currants for

her. With her pretty hair tucked into a little cap, arms bared to the

elbow, and a checked apron which had a coquettish look in spite of the

bib, the young housewife fell to work, feeling no doubts about her

success, for hadn’t she seen Hannah do it hundreds of times? The array

of pots rather amazed her at first, but John was so fond of jelly, and

the nice little jars would look so well on the top shelf, that Meg

resolved to fill them all, and spent a long day picking, boiling,

straining, and fussing over her jelly. She did her best, she asked

advice of Mrs. Cornelius, she racked her brain to remember what Hannah

did that she left undone, she reboiled, resugared, and restrained, but

that dreadful stuff wouldn’t ‘jell’.

She longed to run home, bib and all, and ask Mother to lend her a hand,

but John and she had agreed that they would never annoy anyone with

their private worries, experiments, or quarrels. They had laughed over

that last word as if the idea it suggested was a most preposterous one,

but they had held to their resolve, and whenever they could get on

without help they did so, and no one interfered, for Mrs. March had

advised the plan. So Meg wrestled alone with the refractory sweetmeats

all that hot summer day, and at five o’clock sat down in her

topsy-turvey kitchen, wrung her bedaubed hands, lifted up her voice and

wept.

Now, in the first flush of the new life, she had often said, “My

husband shall always feel free to bring a friend home whenever he

likes. I shall always be prepared. There shall be no flurry, no

scolding, no discomfort, but a neat house, a cheerful wife, and a good

dinner. John, dear, never stop to ask my leave, invite whom you please,

and be sure of a welcome from me.”

How charming that was, to be sure! John quite glowed with pride to hear

her say it, and felt what a blessed thing it was to have a superior

wife. But, although they had had company from time to time, it never

happened to be unexpected, and Meg had never had an opportunity to

distinguish herself till now. It always happens so in this vale of

tears, there is an inevitability about such things which we can only

wonder at, deplore, and bear as we best can.

If John had not forgotten all about the jelly, it really would have

been unpardonable in him to choose that day, of all the days in the

year, to bring a friend home to dinner unexpectedly. Congratulating

himself that a handsome repast had been ordered that morning, feeling

sure that it would be ready to the minute, and indulging in pleasant

anticipations of the charming effect it would produce, when his pretty

wife came running out to meet him, he escorted his friend to his

mansion, with the irrepressible satisfaction of a young host and

husband.

It is a world of disappointments, as John discovered when he reached

the Dovecote. The front door usually stood hospitably open. Now it was

not only shut, but locked, and yesterday’s mud still adorned the steps.

The parlor windows were closed and curtained, no picture of the pretty

wife sewing on the piazza, in white, with a distracting little bow in

her hair, or a bright-eyed hostess, smiling a shy welcome as she

greeted her guest. Nothing of the sort, for not a soul appeared but a

sanginary-looking boy asleep under the current bushes.

“I’m afraid something has happened. Step into the garden, Scott, while

I look up Mrs. Brooke,” said John, alarmed at the silence and solitude.

Round the house he hurried, led by a pungent smell of burned sugar, and

Mr. Scott strolled after him, with a queer look on his face. He paused

discreetly at a distance when Brooke disappeared, but he could both see

and hear, and being a bachelor, enjoyed the prospect mightily.

In the kitchen reigned confusion and despair. One edition of jelly was

trickled from pot to pot, another lay upon the floor, and a third was

burning gaily on the stove. Lotty, with Teutonic phlegm, was calmly

eating bread and currant wine, for the jelly was still in a hopelessly

liquid state, while Mrs. Brooke, with her apron over her head, sat

sobbing dismally.

“My dearest girl, what is the matter?” cried John, rushing in, with

awful visions of scalded hands, sudden news of affliction, and secret

consternation at the thought of the guest in the garden.

“Oh, John, I am so tired and hot and cross and worried! I’ve been at it

till I’m all worn out. Do come and help me or I shall die!” and the

exhausted housewife cast herself upon his breast, giving him a sweet

welcome in every sense of the word, for her pinafore had been baptized

at the same time as the floor.

“What worries you dear? Has anything dreadful happened?” asked the

anxious John, tenderly kissing the crown of the little cap, which was

all askew.

“Yes,” sobbed Meg despairingly.

“Tell me quick, then. Don’t cry. I can bear anything better than that.

Out with it, love.”

“The... The jelly won’t jell and I don’t know what to do!”

John Brooke laughed then as he never dared to laugh afterward, and the

derisive Scott smiled involuntarily as he heard the hearty peal, which

put the finishing stroke to poor Meg’s woe.

“Is that all? Fling it out of the window, and don’t bother any more

about it. I’ll buy you quarts if you want it, but for heaven’s sake

don’t have hysterics, for I’ve brought Jack Scott home to dinner,

and...”

John got no further, for Meg cast him off, and clasped her hands with a

tragic gesture as she fell into a chair, exclaiming in a tone of

mingled indignation, reproach, and dismay...

“A man to dinner, and everything in a mess! John Brooke, how could you

do such a thing?”

“Hush, he’s in the garden! I forgot the confounded jelly, but it can’t

be helped now,” said John, surveying the prospect with an anxious eye.

“You ought to have sent word, or told me this morning, and you ought to

have remembered how busy I was,” continued Meg petulantly, for even

turtledoves will peck when ruffled.

“I didn’t know it this morning, and there was no time to send word, for

I met him on the way out. I never thought of asking leave, when you

have always told me to do as I liked. I never tried it before, and hang

me if I ever do again!” added John, with an aggrieved air.

“I should hope not! Take him away at once. I can’t see him, and there

isn’t any dinner.”

“Well, I like that! Where’s the beef and vegetables I sent home, and

the pudding you promised?” cried John, rushing to the larder.

“I hadn’t time to cook anything. I meant to dine at Mother’s. I’m

sorry, but I was so busy,” and Meg’s tears began again.

John was a mild man, but he was human, and after a long day’s work to

come home tired, hungry, and hopeful, to find a chaotic house, an empty

table, and a cross wife was not exactly conducive to repose of mind or

manner. He restrained himself however, and the little squall would have

blown over, but for one unlucky word.

“It’s a scrape, I acknowledge, but if you will lend a hand, we’ll pull

through and have a good time yet. Don’t cry, dear, but just exert

yourself a bit, and fix us up something to eat. We’re both as hungry as

hunters, so we shan’t mind what it is. Give us the cold meat, and bread

and cheese. We won’t ask for jelly.”

He meant it to be a good-natured joke, but that one word sealed his

fate. Meg thought it was too cruel to hint about her sad failure, and

the last atom of patience vanished as he spoke.

“You must get yourself out of the scrape as you can. I’m too used up to

‘exert’ myself for anyone. It’s like a man to propose a bone and vulgar

bread and cheese for company. I won’t have anything of the sort in my

house. Take that Scott up to Mother’s, and tell him I’m away, sick,

dead, anything. I won’t see him, and you two can laugh at me and my

jelly as much as you like. You won’t have anything else here.” and

having delivered her defiance all on one breath, Meg cast away her

pinafore and precipitately left the field to bemoan herself in her own

room.

What those two creatures did in her absence, she never knew, but Mr.

Scott was not taken ‘up to Mother’s’, and when Meg descended, after

they had strolled away together, she found traces of a promiscuous

lunch which filled her with horror. Lotty reported that they had eaten

“a much, and greatly laughed, and the master bid her throw away all the

sweet stuff, and hide the pots.”

Meg longed to go and tell Mother, but a sense of shame at her own

short-comings, of loyalty to John, “who might be cruel, but nobody

should know it,” restrained her, and after a summary cleaning up, she

dressed herself prettily, and sat down to wait for John to come and be

forgiven.

Unfortunately, John didn’t come, not seeing the matter in that light.

He had carried it off as a good joke with Scott, excused his little

wife as well as he could, and played the host so hospitably that his

friend enjoyed the impromptu dinner, and promised to come again, but

John was angry, though he did not show it, he felt that Meg had

deserted him in his hour of need. “It wasn’t fair to tell a man to

bring folks home any time, with perfect freedom, and when he took you

at your word, to flame up and blame him, and leave him in the lurch, to

be laughed at or pitied. No, by George, it wasn’t! And Meg must know

it.”

He had fumed inwardly during the feast, but when the flurry was over

and he strolled home after seeing Scott off, a milder mood came over

him. “Poor little thing! It was hard upon her when she tried so

heartily to please me. She was wrong, of course, but then she was

young. I must be patient and teach her.” He hoped she had not gone

home—he hated gossip and interference. For a minute he was ruffled

again at the mere thought of it, and then the fear that Meg would cry

herself sick softened his heart, and sent him on at a quicker pace,

resolving to be calm and kind, but firm, quite firm, and show her where

she had failed in her duty to her spouse.

Meg likewise resolved to be ‘calm and kind, but firm’, and show him his

duty. She longed to run to meet him, and beg pardon, and be kissed and

comforted, as she was sure of being, but, of course, she did nothing of

the sort, and when she saw John coming, began to hum quite naturally,

as she rocked and sewed, like a lady of leisure in her best parlor.

John was a little disappointed not to find a tender Niobe, but feeling

that his dignity demanded the first apology, he made none, only came

leisurely in and laid himself upon the sofa with the singularly

relevant remark, “We are going to have a new moon, my dear.”

“I’ve no objection,” was Meg’s equally soothing remark. A few other

topics of general interest were introduced by Mr. Brooke and

wet-blanketed by Mrs. Brooke, and conversation languished. John went to

one window, unfolded his paper, and wrapped himself in it, figuratively

speaking. Meg went to the other window, and sewed as if new rosettes

for slippers were among the necessaries of life. Neither spoke. Both

looked quite ‘calm and firm’, and both felt desperately uncomfortable.

“Oh, dear,” thought Meg, “married life is very trying, and does need

infinite patience as well as love, as Mother says.” The word ‘Mother’

suggested other maternal counsels given long ago, and received with

unbelieving protests.

“John is a good man, but he has his faults, and you must learn to see

and bear with them, remembering your own. He is very decided, but never

will be obstinate, if you reason kindly, not oppose impatiently. He is

very accurate, and particular about the truth—a good trait, though you

call him ‘fussy’. Never deceive him by look or word, Meg, and he will

give you the confidence you deserve, the support you need. He has a

temper, not like ours—one flash and then all over—but the white, still

anger that is seldom stirred, but once kindled is hard to quench. Be

careful, be very careful, not to wake his anger against yourself, for

peace and happiness depend on keeping his respect. Watch yourself, be

the first to ask pardon if you both err, and guard against the little

piques, misunderstandings, and hasty words that often pave the way for

bitter sorrow and regret.”

These words came back to Meg, as she sat sewing in the sunset,

especially the last. This was the first serious disagreement, her own

hasty speeches sounded both silly and unkind, as she recalled them, her

own anger looked childish now, and thoughts of poor John coming home to

such a scene quite melted her heart. She glanced at him with tears in

her eyes, but he did not see them. She put down her work and got up,

thinking, “I will be the first to say, ‘Forgive me’”, but he did not

seem to hear her. She went very slowly across the room, for pride was

hard to swallow, and stood by him, but he did not turn his head. For a

minute she felt as if she really couldn’t do it, then came the thought,

“This is the beginning. I’ll do my part, and have nothing to reproach

myself with,” and stooping down, she softly kissed her husband on the

forehead. Of course that settled it. The penitent kiss was better than

a world of words, and John had her on his knee in a minute, saying

tenderly...

“It was too bad to laugh at the poor little jelly pots. Forgive me,

dear. I never will again!”

But he did, oh bless you, yes, hundreds of times, and so did Meg, both

declaring that it was the sweetest jelly they ever made, for family

peace was preserved in that little family jar.

After this, Meg had Mr. Scott to dinner by special invitation, and

served him up a pleasant feast without a cooked wife for the first

course, on which occasion she was so gay and gracious, and made

everything go off so charmingly, that Mr. Scott told John he was a

lucky fellow, and shook his head over the hardships of bachelorhood all

the way home.

In the autumn, new trials and experiences came to Meg. Sallie Moffat

renewed her friendship, was always running out for a dish of gossip at

the little house, or inviting ‘that poor dear’ to come in and spend the

day at the big house. It was pleasant, for in dull weather Meg often

felt lonely. All were busy at home, John absent till night, and nothing

to do but sew, or read, or potter about. So it naturally fell out that

Meg got into the way of gadding and gossiping with her friend. Seeing

Sallie’s pretty things made her long for such, and pity herself because

she had not got them. Sallie was very kind, and often offered her the

coveted trifles, but Meg declined them, knowing that John wouldn’t like

it, and then this foolish little woman went and did what John disliked

even worse.

She knew her husband’s income, and she loved to feel that he trusted

her, not only with his happiness, but what some men seem to value

more—his money. She knew where it was, was free to take what she liked,

and all he asked was that she should keep account of every penny, pay

bills once a month, and remember that she was a poor man’s wife. Till

now she had done well, been prudent and exact, kept her little account

books neatly, and showed them to him monthly without fear. But that

autumn the serpent got into Meg’s paradise, and tempted her like many a

modern Eve, not with apples, but with dress. Meg didn’t like to be

pitied and made to feel poor. It irritated her, but she was ashamed to

confess it, and now and then she tried to console herself by buying

something pretty, so that Sallie needn’t think she had to economize.

She always felt wicked after it, for the pretty things were seldom

necessaries, but then they cost so little, it wasn’t worth worrying

about, so the trifles increased unconsciously, and in the shopping

excursions she was no longer a passive looker-on.

But the trifles cost more than one would imagine, and when she cast up

her accounts at the end of the month the sum total rather scared her.

John was busy that month and left the bills to her, the next month he

was absent, but the third he had a grand quarterly settling up, and Meg

never forgot it. A few days before she had done a dreadful thing, and

it weighed upon her conscience. Sallie had been buying silks, and Meg

longed for a new one, just a handsome light one for parties, her black

silk was so common, and thin things for evening wear were only proper

for girls. Aunt March usually gave the sisters a present of twenty-five

dollars apiece at New Year’s. That was only a month to wait, and here

was a lovely violet silk going at a bargain, and she had the money, if

she only dared to take it. John always said what was his was hers, but

would he think it right to spend not only the prospective

five-and-twenty, but another five-and-twenty out of the household fund?

That was the question. Sallie had urged her to do it, had offered to

lend the money, and with the best intentions in life had tempted Meg

beyond her strength. In an evil moment the shopman held up the lovely,

shimmering folds, and said, “A bargain, I assure, you, ma’am.” She

answered, “I’ll take it,” and it was cut off and paid for, and Sallie

had exulted, and she had laughed as if it were a thing of no

consequence, and driven away, feeling as if she had stolen something,

and the police were after her.

When she got home, she tried to assuage the pangs of remorse by

spreading forth the lovely silk, but it looked less silvery now, didn’t

become her, after all, and the words ‘fifty dollars’ seemed stamped

like a pattern down each breadth. She put it away, but it haunted her,

not delightfully as a new dress should, but dreadfully like the ghost

of a folly that was not easily laid. When John got out his books that

night, Meg’s heart sank, and for the first time in her married life,

she was afraid of her husband. The kind, brown eyes looked as if they

could be stern, and though he was unusually merry, she fancied he had

found her out, but didn’t mean to let her know it. The house bills were

all paid, the books all in order. John had praised her, and was undoing

the old pocketbook which they called the ‘bank’, when Meg, knowing that

it was quite empty, stopped his hand, saying nervously...

“You haven’t seen my private expense book yet.”

John never asked to see it, but she always insisted on his doing so,

and used to enjoy his masculine amazement at the queer things women

wanted, and made him guess what piping was, demand fiercely the meaning

of a hug-me-tight, or wonder how a little thing composed of three

rosebuds, a bit of velvet, and a pair of strings, could possibly be a

bonnet, and cost six dollars. That night he looked as if he would like

the fun of quizzing her figures and pretending to be horrified at her

extravagance, as he often did, being particularly proud of his prudent

wife.

The little book was brought slowly out and laid down before him. Meg

got behind his chair under pretense of smoothing the wrinkles out of

his tired forehead, and standing there, she said, with her panic

increasing with every word...

“John, dear, I’m ashamed to show you my book, for I’ve really been

dreadfully extravagant lately. I go about so much I must have things,

you know, and Sallie advised my getting it, so I did, and my New Year’s

money will partly pay for it, but I was sorry after I had done it, for

I knew you’d think it wrong in me.”

John laughed, and drew her round beside him, saying goodhumoredly,

“Don’t go and hide. I won’t beat you if you have got a pair of killing

boots. I’m rather proud of my wife’s feet, and don’t mind if she does

pay eight or nine dollars for her boots, if they are good ones.”

That had been one of her last ‘trifles’, and John’s eye had fallen on

it as he spoke. “Oh, what will he say when he comes to that awful fifty

dollars!” thought Meg, with a shiver.

“It’s worse than boots, it’s a silk dress,” she said, with the calmness

of desperation, for she wanted the worst over.

“Well, dear, what is the ‘dem’d total’, as Mr. Mantalini says?”

That didn’t sound like John, and she knew he was looking up at her with

the straightforward look that she had always been ready to meet and

answer with one as frank till now. She turned the page and her head at

the same time, pointing to the sum which would have been bad enough

without the fifty, but which was appalling to her with that added. For

a minute the room was very still, then John said slowly—but she could

feel it cost him an effort to express no displeasure—. . .

“Well, I don’t know that fifty is much for a dress, with all the

furbelows and notions you have to have to finish it off these days.”

“It isn’t made or trimmed,” sighed Meg, faintly, for a sudden

recollection of the cost still to be incurred quite overwhelmed her.

“Twenty-five yards of silk seems a good deal to cover one small woman,

but I’ve no doubt my wife will look as fine as Ned Moffat’s when she

gets it on,” said John dryly.

“I know you are angry, John, but I can’t help it. I don’t mean to waste

your money, and I didn’t think those little things would count up so. I

can’t resist them when I see Sallie buying all she wants, and pitying

me because I don’t. I try to be contented, but it is hard, and I’m

tired of being poor.”

The last words were spoken so low she thought he did not hear them, but

he did, and they wounded him deeply, for he had denied himself many

pleasures for Meg’s sake. She could have bitten her tongue out the

minute she had said it, for John pushed the books away and got up,

saying with a little quiver in his voice, “I was afraid of this. I do

my best, Meg.” If he had scolded her, or even shaken her, it would not

have broken her heart like those few words. She ran to him and held him

close, crying, with repentant tears, “Oh, John, my dear, kind,

hard-working boy. I didn’t mean it! It was so wicked, so untrue and

ungrateful, how could I say it! Oh, how could I say it!”

He was very kind, forgave her readily, and did not utter one reproach,

but Meg knew that she had done and said a thing which would not be

forgotten soon, although he might never allude to it again. She had

promised to love him for better or worse, and then she, his wife, had

reproached him with his poverty, after spending his earnings

recklessly. It was dreadful, and the worst of it was John went on so

quietly afterward, just as if nothing had happened, except that he

stayed in town later, and worked at night when she had gone to cry

herself to sleep. A week of remorse nearly made Meg sick, and the

discovery that John had countermanded the order for his new greatcoat

reduced her to a state of despair which was pathetic to behold. He had

simply said, in answer to her surprised inquiries as to the change, “I

can’t afford it, my dear.”

Meg said no more, but a few minutes after he found her in the hall with

her face buried in the old greatcoat, crying as if her heart would

break.

They had a long talk that night, and Meg learned to love her husband

better for his poverty, because it seemed to have made a man of him,

given him the strength and courage to fight his own way, and taught him

a tender patience with which to bear and comfort the natural longings

and failures of those he loved.

Next day she put her pride in her pocket, went to Sallie, told the

truth, and asked her to buy the silk as a favor. The good-natured Mrs.

Moffat willingly did so, and had the delicacy not to make her a present

of it immediately afterward. Then Meg ordered home the greatcoat, and

when John arrived, she put it on, and asked him how he liked her new

silk gown. One can imagine what answer he made, how he received his

present, and what a blissful state of things ensued. John came home

early, Meg gadded no more, and that greatcoat was put on in the morning

by a very happy husband, and taken off at night by a most devoted

little wife. So the year rolled round, and at midsummer there came to

Meg a new experience, the deepest and tenderest of a woman’s life.

Laurie came sneaking into the kitchen of the Dovecote one Saturday,

with an excited face, and was received with the clash of cymbals, for

Hannah clapped her hands with a saucepan in one and the cover in the

other.

“How’s the little mamma? Where is everybody? Why didn’t you tell me

before I came home?” began Laurie in a loud whisper.

“Happy as a queen, the dear! Every soul of ’em is upstairs a

worshipin’. We didn’t want no hurrycanes round. Now you go into the

parlor, and I’ll send ’em down to you,” with which somewhat involved

reply Hannah vanished, chuckling ecstatically.

Presently Jo appeared, proudly bearing a flannel bundle laid forth upon

a large pillow. Jo’s face was very sober, but her eyes twinkled, and

there was an odd sound in her voice of repressed emotion of some sort.

“Shut your eyes and hold out your arms,” she said invitingly.

Laurie backed precipitately into a corner, and put his hands behind him

with an imploring gesture. “No, thank you. I’d rather not. I shall drop

it or smash it, as sure as fate.”

“Then you shan’t see your nevvy,” said Jo decidedly, turning as if to

go.

“I will, I will! Only you must be responsible for damages.” and obeying

orders, Laurie heroically shut his eyes while something was put into

his arms. A peal of laughter from Jo, Amy, Mrs. March, Hannah, and John

caused him to open them the next minute, to find himself invested with

two babies instead of one.

No wonder they laughed, for the expression of his face was droll enough

to convulse a Quaker, as he stood and stared wildly from the

unconscious innocents to the hilarious spectators with such dismay that

Jo sat down on the floor and screamed.

“Twins, by Jupiter!” was all he said for a minute, then turning to the

women with an appealing look that was comically piteous, he added,

“Take ’em quick, somebody! I’m going to laugh, and I shall drop ’em.”

Jo rescued his babies, and marched up and down, with one on each arm,

as if already initiated into the mysteries of babytending, while Laurie

laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“It’s the best joke of the season, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have told you,

for I set my heart on surprising you, and I flatter myself I’ve done

it,” said Jo, when she got her breath.

“I never was more staggered in my life. Isn’t it fun? Are they boys?

What are you going to name them? Let’s have another look. Hold me up,

Jo, for upon my life it’s one too many for me,” returned Laurie,

regarding the infants with the air of a big, benevolent Newfoundland

looking at a pair of infantile kittens.

“Boy and girl. Aren’t they beauties?” said the proud papa, beaming upon

the little red squirmers as if they were unfledged angels.

“Most remarkable children I ever saw. Which is which?” and Laurie bent

like a well-sweep to examine the prodigies.

“Amy put a blue ribbon on the boy and a pink on the girl, French

fashion, so you can always tell. Besides, one has blue eyes and one

brown. Kiss them, Uncle Teddy,” said wicked Jo.

“I’m afraid they mightn’t like it,” began Laurie, with unusual timidity

in such matters.

“Of course they will, they are used to it now. Do it this minute, sir!”

commanded Jo, fearing he might propose a proxy.

Laurie screwed up his face and obeyed with a gingerly peck at each

little cheek that produced another laugh, and made the babies squeal.

“There, I knew they didn’t like it! That’s the boy, see him kick, he

hits out with his fists like a good one. Now then, young Brooke, pitch

into a man of your own size, will you?” cried Laurie, delighted with a

poke in the face from a tiny fist, flapping aimlessly about.

“He’s to be named John Laurence, and the girl Margaret, after mother

and grandmother. We shall call her Daisey, so as not to have two Megs,

and I suppose the mannie will be Jack, unless we find a better name,”

said Amy, with aunt-like interest.

“Name him Demijohn, and call him Demi for short,” said Laurie.

“Daisy and Demi, just the thing! I knew Teddy would do it,” cried Jo

clapping her hands.

Teddy certainly had done it that time, for the babies were ‘Daisy’ and

‘Demi’ to the end of the chapter.