LITMIR.BIZ

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it was no easy thing to pick a name. Mother wanted to call it Doris after her own mother and father wanted Rachel after his mother. Winnie, who was romantic, wanted Elaine, and Joe thought Dulcie would be nice. Pat had secretly called it Miranda for a week and Sidney thought such a blue-eyed baby ought to be named Violet. Aunt Hazel thought Kathleen just the name for it, and Judy, who must have her say with the rest, thought Emmerillus was a rale classy name. The Silver Bush people thought Judy must mean Amaryllis but were never sure of it.

      In the end father suggested that each of them plant a named seed in the garden and see whose came up first. That person should have the privilege of naming the baby.

      “If we find more than one up at once the winners must plant over again,” he said.

      This was a sporting chance and the children were excited. The seeds were planted and tagged and watched every day: but it was Pat who thought of getting up early in the mornings to keep tabs on the bed. Judy said things came up in the night. There was nothing at dark … and in the morning there you were. And there Pat was on the eighth morning, just as the sun was rising, up before any one but Judy. You would have to get up before you went to bed if you meant to get ahead of Judy.

      And Pat’s seed was up! For just one moment she exulted. Then she grew sober and her long-lashed amber eyes filled with troubled wonder. Of course Miranda was a lovely name for a baby. But father wanted Rachel. Mother had named her and Sidney, Uncle Tom had named Joe, Hazel had named Winnie, surely it was father’s turn. He hadn’t said much … father never said much … but Pat knew somehow that he wanted very badly to name the baby Rachel. In her secret heart Pat had hoped that father’s seed would be first.

      She looked around her. No living creature in sight except Gentleman Tom, sitting darkly on the cheese stone. The next moment her seed was yanked out and flung into the burdock patch behind the henhouse. Dad had a chance yet.

      But luck seemed against poor dad. Next morning Win’s and mother’s seeds were up. Pat ruthlessly uprooted them, too. Win didn’t count and mother had named two children already. That was plenty for her. Joe’s met the same fate next morning. Then up popped Sid’s and Judy’s. Pat was quite hardened in rascality now and they went. Anyhow, no child ought ever to be called Emmerillus.

      The next day there was none up and Pat began to be worried. Every one was wondering why none of the seeds were up yet. Judy darkly insinuated that they had been planted the wrong time of the moon. And perhaps father’s wouldn’t come up at all. Pat prayed very desperately that night that it might be up the next morning.

      It was.

      Pat looked about her in triumph, quite untroubled as yet by her duplicity. She had won the victory for father. Oh, how lovely everything was! Gossamer clouds of pale gold floated over the Hill of the Mist. The wind had fallen asleep among the silver birches. The tall firs among them quivered with some kind of dark laughter. The fields were all around her like great gracious arms. The popples, as Judy called them, were whispering around the granary. The world was just a big, smiling greenness, with a vast, alluring blueness seawards. There was a clear, pale, silvery sky over her and everything in the garden seemed to have burst into bloom overnight. Judy’s big clump of bleeding-heart by the kitchen door was hung with ruby jewels. The country was sprinkled with white houses in the sunrise. A stealthy kitten crept through the orchard. Thursday was licking his sleek little chops on the window sill of his beloved granary. A red squirrel chattered at him from a bough of the maple tree over the well. Judy came out to draw a bucket of water.

      “Oh, Judy, father’s seed is up,” cried Pat. She wouldn’t say up first because that wasn’t true.

      “Oh, oh!” Judy accepted the “sign” with good grace. “Well, it do be yer dad’s turn for a fact, and Rachel is a better name than Greta inny day. Greta! The impidence av it!”

      2

      Rachel it was in fact and Rachel it became in law one Sunday six weeks later when the baby was baptised at church in a wondrous heirloom christening robe of eyelet embroidery that Grandmother Gardiner had made for her first baby. All the Silver Bush children had been christened in it. Long robes for babies had gone out of fashion but Judy Plum would not have thought the christening lawful if the baby had not been at least five feet long. They tacked Doris on to the name, too, by way of letting mother down easy, but it was dad’s day of triumph.

      Pat was not sorry for what she had done but her conscience had begun to trouble her a bit and that night when Judy Plum came in to leave her nightly blessing, Pat, who was wide-awake, sat up in bed and flung her arms around Judy’s neck.

      “Oh, Judy … I did something … I s’spose it was bad. I … I wanted father to name the baby … and I pulled up the seeds as fast as they came up in the mornings. Was it very bad, Judy?”

      “Oh, oh, shocking,” said Judy, with a contradictory twinkle in her eyes. “If Joe knew he’d put a tin ear on ye. But I’ll not be telling. More be token as I wanted yer dad to have his way. He do be put upon be the women in this house and that’s a fact.”

      “His seed was the last one to come up,” said Pat, “and Aunt Hazel’s never came up at all.”

      “Oh, oh, didn’t it now?” giggled Judy. “It was up the morning afore yer dad’s and I pulled it out meself.”

      Chapter 6

      What Price Weddings?

      Table of Contents

      1

      Late in August of that summer Pat began to go to school. The first day was very dreadful … almost as dreadful as that day the year before when she had watched Sidney start to school without her. They had never been separated before. She had stood despairingly at the garden gate and watched him out of sight down the lane until she could see him no longer for tears.

      “He’ll be back in the evening, me jewel. Think av the fun av watching for him to come home,” comforted Judy.

      “The evening is so far away,” sobbed Pat. It seemed to her the day would never end: but half past four came and Pat went flying down the lane to greet Sid. Really, it was so splendid to have him back that it almost atoned for seeing him go.

      Pat didn’t want to go to school. To be away from Silver Bush for eight hours five days out of every week was a tragedy to her. Judy put her up a delicious lunch, filled her satchel with her favourite little red apples and kissed her goodbye encouragingly.

      “Now, darlint, remimber it’s goin’ to get an eddication ye are. Oh, oh, and eddication is a great thing and it’s meself do be after knowing it because I never had one.”

      “Why, Judy, you know more than anybody else in the world,” said Pat wonderingly.

      “Oh, oh, to be sure I do, but an eddication isn’t just knowing things,” said Judy wisely. “Don’t ye be worrying a bit. Ye’ll get on fine. Ye know yer primer so ye’ve got a good start. Now run along, girleen, and mind ye’re rale mannerly to yer tacher. It’s the credit av Silver Bush ye must be kaping up, ye know.”

      It was this thought that braced Pat sufficiently to enable her to get through the day. It kept the tears back as she turned, at the end of the lane, clinging to Sid’s hand, to wave back to Judy who was waving encouragingly from the garden gate. It bore her up under the scrutiny of dozens of strange eyes and her interview with the teacher. It gave her backbone through the long day as she sat alone at her little desk and made pot-hooks … or looked through the window down into the school bush which she liked much better. It was an ever-present help in recesses and dinner hour, when Winnie was off with the big girls and Sid and Joe with the boys and she was alone with the first and second primers.

      When school came out at last Pat reviewed the day and proudly concluded that she had not disgraced Silver Bush.

      And

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