Part 12

“‘Come next Sunday, moreover, I’ll have them baptized Albert and Victoria to give them a fair start, even if their poor dead parents as is dead and gone did see to it, as most like they did, being English; twice will only set the colour better.’

“‘Are their parents dead? Did they fetch a note?’ said I.

“‘Are ye a silly,’ snapped aunty; ‘would living parents spill such angel hinfants into strangers’ windows, think ’ee? Don’t stand there gapin’ at me, but trot down and ask Mrs. Evan for the kindness of a few of her lads’ old slips if she’s any laid by, for I mistrust from the smell of those they’ve on that they’ve been a long journey from soap, and when I’ve had the bonnies in a tub, I’ll trim them up fresh. Why don’t ye budge, lass? Are ye rooted?’

“For, ma’am, I couldn’t stir, thinking aunty had gone clean daft, and while I was sort of getting wind to start, Uncle Timothy came in with a straw clothes-basket.

“‘Here, woman, put a quilt in this; it will make a good coop for yon strays,’ he said, reaching over to the peg where hung his top-coat.

“‘They’re well enough where they be until I can get a proper cradle rigged,’ said aunty, trying to make friendly with them, which they mistrusted.

“‘Cradle! They’ll need no cradle!’ said uncle. ‘I’m harnessed now to take them to the Orphan House. Come ye along wi’ me, Effie; they may be awkward freight; ye’ll be back again before your leddy’s up.’

“‘Orphan House! Bridgeton! and that’s where they’ll _not_ go. Don’t ye sense, man, that the Lord has sent them to us to teach us our bounden duty? They’ll be our children by adoption quick as the law allows it, man. Orphan House, Bridgeton, indeed!’

“I got a swift squint at Uncle Timothy’s face then, ma’am, and I’ve never seen him look so dour since the day he married and I helped him into his tight new boots; it was juist awful!

“‘Dinna ye heap disrespect upon the Lord, woman,’ he said at last; ‘’twas not he put them in here; he doesn’t sneak babes in windows of the aged; his work is seen of men and in the open. Some rogue has put upon us for a pair of old fules, and I’ll not have it.’

“‘But ye know, Timothy, I’ve spoken lately to the doctor about a pair of bairns, and ye never gainsaid me,’ said aunty, beginning to cry, and a bit overcome for the time by his flow o’ words, for uncle never speaks much.

“‘Taking the known born with our eyes open is one thing, but a grab in the dark, pushed into the hand by others, is another. Ha’ ye looked in their bundle?’ said he, rolling over with his foot a paper parcel that had fallen under a chair. ‘Open it, Effie, lass.’

“My fingers could scarce untie the string for hurry, but all there was within was a few ragged bits of coarse clothes and some biscuits like the ones that they were crumbing.

“‘Dry food for bairns,’ said Uncle Timothy, picking up one and twirling it between his fingers. ‘It’s time for the milking now. I’ll speak to the dochtor and question around a bit before I take the youngsters over; that’ll be after deenner, gin I find no trace of those that brought them. A small, dark man, say you, but you saw naught of his face? It’s going to be michty hot this forenoon,’ continued uncle, weakening, when he saw how Aunt Martha was taking on. Then I slipped out and ran down to tell you, ma’am, and ask for the clothes.”

Promising to hunt up some garments, I returned to Evan, considerably dazed by Effie’s recital. We had all hoped that Martha’s “Harvest spell” would vanish before the infants filling her numerous requirements should appear, but we had foolishly reckoned without considering the unexpected, which is always quite sure to happen.

“Don’t worry,” said Evan the cheerful; “the town authorities will be only too glad to be relieved of the charge of the waifs, as a matter of course, but at least an attempt will be made to find where they came from; and though there’s nothing to prevent Martha’s having them christened, the matter of legal adoption will require more time, and something may turn up. Don’t you realize, Barbara, that it is a most unusual thing for children a year old or more to be abandoned? Foundlings are usually a few hours, or at most a few weeks, old. It’s to the credit of human nature that few of even the lowest people will give up their cubs when once they’ve learned to know them.”

“Perhaps, however, these are orphans, and it is the people who have them second-hand that wish to get rid of them,” I said.

“That may be; but there was a certain method in the place chosen for leaving them that makes me think near-by people, possibly in Bridgeton, had a hand in it; if so, it will leak out.”

So, angry as I was at Martha’s total lack of common sense, but remembering all she had been to me and my boys in the past dozen years, I made up a bundle of such things as the needy hospital had not claimed, and after breakfast took it up to the chicken farm, where I found that father had preceded me.

It is useless to tell a woman over thirty that men are lacking in curiosity! Father asked two questions to my one. However, he pronounced Albert and Victoria sound of limb and lungs, but seemed to regard the whole matter as a joke, even going so far as to admire their pronounced Guelph noses, and was not as judicious as I had expected in the advice he gave to Martha.

The doings of the next three weeks I will give as recorded in my Experience Book. It had been a long time since anything had occurred worthy of record, so I resorted to it to relieve my feelings.

_August 9._ The investigation as to the origin of Albert and Victoria has proved a complete failure; no one can be found who saw a horse and wagon driven by a strange, small, dark man on the day of their arrival or the night before. Already Martha’s neat cottage has suffered a change, and the sitting-room looked this morning like a ship’s deck swept by a hurricane; all objects that could be hung up or stowed away on mantel-shelf or in cupboard had been removed, and the chairs were huddled together in a corner. The twins move about in a very lively manner: Victoria, creeping on her hands and right knee, uses her left leg as an oar; while Albert, not content with this method, pulls himself slowly upon his feet and totters forward a few steps on a run, only to topple over, catching at anything within reach.

This morning, according to Effie, he caught at the cloth that covered the pan of evenly risen bread dough that Martha was about to mould into loaves, upset it, falling backward into the wreck that made a most comfortable air-cushion.

Timothy’s bed has been moved upstairs, as the children have never been “trained rightly to sleep in their beds,” as Martha expresses it, and the process is painful to a listener, who, as Martha says of Timothy, is “a bachelor boiled through, and hasn’t maternal instinks!”

_August 12._ The twins babble away at a great rate between themselves, and Martha, anxious to find meaning in their utterances, called me in to translate. “It sounds to me like broad Yorkshire they do be trying for, Mrs. Evan,” she said in perfect earnest; “but then, again, it mought be Lancaster; that talk is so overlappin’ ’tis hard to reach.”

To my ear, even with the echo of Ian and Richard’s baby talk in it, the sounds are wholly alien and barbaric, a fit match for the carnal appetites of the youngsters. All in a minute, when Martha’s back was turned, Victoria hastily devoured the contents of the dish wherein food had been put on the stoop for the hounds, while Albert howled and kicked with symptoms of a fiendish temper because he was not quick enough to get any of the scraps.

Victoria will be ill to-morrow!

“The ’ounds make too free!” ejaculated Martha, wrathfully (she who had raised many a fall litter by tiding them over cold days in the corner of our spotless kitchen). “Timothy must keep them off and fodder them at the stables and not put temptation in the way of Christian babes!”

By the way, I had almost forgotten to record that the twins were christened down at the Rectory yesterday afternoon. There was a difficulty about their second name that threatened to disrupt Martha’s plans.

Timothy, who has been strangely mild and unassertive of late, crossing Martha in nothing, refused to lend the honoured name of Saunders to what he persists in calling “the aliens.” Martha argued, but to no purpose; his name, he said, was his own; if he had shared it with her, she had no right to peddle it outside the family.

This, even the Rector was obliged to agree was just. Then an inspiration seized Martha. If not Saunders, why not Corkle? The late Corkle could raise no objection, and it would be a sort of belated compliment, and at the same time a delicate way of keeping his name in the ears of his successor!

13. Victoria was _not_ ill; Martha is, however, beginning to look fagged; ten maternal days are leaving marks I do not like to see; the wholesome rosy cheeks look dark and veiny. Also some of her cast-iron theories as to the management of infants (which, by the way, she has never attempted to practise upon mine) are disintegrating like a paper bag that has fallen into a water barrel, until only a semblance remains.

Martha’s chief local aversion is a Polish family named Potowski who, unknown to the neighbourhood, unfortunately, leased the land adjoining us on the north, a couple of years ago. Against these people, sellers of blue milk, and as she expresses it, “Sabbath-hoed vegetables,” more than suspected of being Hebrews, she set her face and has full cause, for scarcely a day passes but one of the ten Potowski children overflow into our chicken farm and seldom retreat empty-handed, anything being acceptable at home, from an egg to a fistful of oats or an armful of hay.

So what was my surprise this afternoon to see Albert and Victoria crawl unchidden across the grass plot between the rear porch and dividing fence, and exchange much unintelligible gossip with a group of young Potowskis on the other side, while the new Martha sat under the bell pear tree fashioning some small creeping aprons with fingers that trembled strangely, too worn out either to chide or follow.

The new Martha, in contrast to the old, was rather dishevelled; no collar and brooch topped her tightly buttoned blue and white calico bodice; the parting in her brown hair was decidedly on the bias, and not only did the hair itself lack the usual polish, but suggested that coal ashes and not brushing had been its portion that day. While the tasty cap, the crowning glory of the mature British matron, of and below, a certain class, was altogether lacking.

“Yes, Mrs. Evan,” she said, with a sigh, as she saw me glance at the twins clinging frantically to the fence through which they were poking grass and leaves, “the young need young company, and it can do no harm for them to prattle with the fence between, and though the people yonder are no better than gypsies, their lingo goes for naught, for Albert and Victoria can only make out English words.

“Do they understand? Most surely do they, Mrs. Evan; they know their names, and come crawling up quick when they see me fixing their bread and milk, bless their hearts!”

Yet I could not be deceived; Martha’s tones were those of duty oft rehearsed rather than affection. I’ve seen her, days gone by, cuddle and kiss my babies until the rose in her Sunday cap threatened to drop its petals with trembling; but if she ever kissed the twins, it must have been always in private.

Conversation languished these days, and while I was endeavouring to manufacture some, both twins began to scream, while Albert, letting go the fence, rolled into the grass, purple in the face and evidently choking.

Hurrying over, I seized Victoria, while Martha picked up the choking brother, running her finger inside his mouth to dislodge whatever he had tried to swallow.

Victoria was clutching part of a Frankfort sausage which she licked eagerly between her sobs, and, as far as we could learn from the enemy across the fence, who had contributed the dainty, Albert had snatched a piece of it, and by sucking, biting, and bolting, made way with it at the risk of strangling. Surely _he_ would be sick, and I coaxed father to go up after supper in case he was needed. On his return he reported that the boy was sleeping normally, curled up _under his bed_, Martha confessing that it was well-nigh impossible to keep either child _in_ a bed unless pinned down by blankets, which are rather unseasonable.

It certainly would be interesting from a psychological standpoint to know the origin of these waifs, and how and where they have slept, that they should show preferences so decidedly.

_The 22d._ It has been a very uncomfortable week at the chicken farm, I take it. The heat has been of the quality that makes breathing like inhaling the steam of a wash-boiler.

The twins are presumably teething, and Timothy, I find, mostly comes to our house for a quiet supper with niece Effie and our sympathetic cook, who was overheard condoling with him upon the discomfort the twins and Martha’s whim had brought upon those who were of the age to be grandparents, with their family housework, so to speak, done.

_The 24th._ Effie informs me that Aunt Martha has stopped baking bread, and takes it in from the baker. Timothy, accustomed to whittling wedges from his wife’s durable cottage loaves, supplementing the same with either butter or cheese, did not realize the flimsy quality of the substitute until his knife slipped through the compressible sponge and yesterday gashed his finger deeply.

_The 26th._ Martha sent down this morning to ask father if there is any _safe_ kind of soothing syrup that she could give the twins to make them sleep at night. I went up early in the evening to see if they had fever, and take father’s answer, which was to the effect that all such drugs are pernicious, and that all teething children are fretful in the month of August. They had no fever, but were healthy and normally cross and uncomfortable. So was Martha.

Finally quiet fell upon the two small beds, and Martha came out upon the porch and sank heavily into the rocker. The glow of Timothy’s pipe was missing from the corner where it had blinked and winked in pleasant weather for so many years. The hounds, having been banished from their lounging place because they might hurt the twins, foregathered with Timothy in the open doorway of the carriage house, in plain sight, through a gap in the trees. Presently Effie joined her uncle, and then the cook appeared, carrying something in a pitcher, doubtless a delectable mixture of iced lemonade and ginger-ale. A garden bench was pressed into service, and soon the cook’s concertina chirped out “Comin’ thro’ the Rye,” and Timothy’s cracked laugh could be heard above it.

Martha sat bolt upright for a moment (it seems to me that it is very irritating to her that all opposition has ceased concerning her venture, excitement died away, and that we all treat the matter as nothing unusual); then she suddenly relaxed, saying irrelevantly, “Bairns were easier raised when I was a gell, Mrs. Evan, else my sister Bell, the mother of eleven living and three not complete, wouldn’t be now turning sixty-three and mistress of the Blue Bell out Cheltenham way.

“Of course, some do give more trouble than others; likewise Timothy’s niece, Jane Fergus, Effie’s sister, has only six, and yet is always droopy. Timothy’s wanting to send her money presents constant to help along, but its naught but bad management, say I. She couldn’t manage three, so what sense of six?”

“Perhaps she dreads race suicide as you do,” I said, and was sorry the minute after, poor Martha looked so weary, and the concertina had ceased to chirp and had swung into “John Anderson,” which either by chance or diabolic intent on the part of the cook, changed in turn into “Home, Sweet Home.”

_The 28th._ To-day I invited Martha to take a drive, as she wished to buy the twins a carriage; at the same time I sent Effie up to tend them. I don’t know what there is about those children, but strong and healthy as they are, they do not seem young, but like the changelings in fairy stories. There is usually something attractive about youngsters, and I’ve seen even the most adorable little darkies, but to this rule Albert and Victoria are certainly exceptions.

As we neared Bridgeton I said, for the sake of breaking the silence, “Will you buy a go-cart or a little coach? The go-cart is cool for this season, but of course the coach will be more useful this winter.”

“This winter? Some of us may be gone before winter, Mrs. Evan, and no disrespect intended.”

“Why, Martha, are you feeling ill?” I cried, declining to be included in the gloomy prediction.

“I’m not to say well, Mrs. Evan.”

“Where is it and what? Rheumatism?”

“Not so friendly as rheumatism, Mrs. Evan; it’s fulness and emptiness in spots, the one being in the chest and the other of the head. My mother had it in the other way, the head full, and died of a stroke.”

“If you feel ill, we will leave Bridgeton and shopping alone and go for a sniff of the sea,” I said, turning shoreward; “the old toy cart of the boys will serve for the present;” and Martha made no sign of protest.

_August 30._ Yesterday, Martha’s sense of the duties of citizenship had a chance to exhibit itself and hear all the praise that her heart could desire. Dressed in her best, and the twins wearing new white dresses and white hats with a pink and blue bow respectively, she took them to the Sunday-school picnic given by Effie’s church, over which a minister of the Severely Protestant type presided. Timothy did _not_ go, be it said!

If Martha had plotted and planned a sensation, her success could not have been greater, and for a few hours her spirit soared. Albert and Victoria were handed from one to another, and fortunately did not cry, but treated the matter as something to which they were quite accustomed. (Effie told me with horror, that in their rounds they were fed everything, from candy to lemonade and pickles, and I believe her.)

To cap the climax, the Severely Protestant made a little speech, praising “our sister Saunders’ sense of duty in the preservation of two such interesting members of the English-speaking race, so often too lightly crowded out by foreign hordes; we, who through selfishness sometimes take the children nature forces upon us unwillingly, should bow before one who, exempt by age, volunteers in the cause of patriotism.” Scattering applause!

_August 31._ Again it is the unexpected that happens! This afternoon, as father and I were chatting in the cool depths of the Garden House concerning the adoption papers about which the town clerk was to call on the morrow, noise of a hubbub was borne on the breeze from the vicinity of the chicken farm.

As we listened, sounds separated themselves, children screaming and the piercing voice of a woman shouting being the chief.

“Something is the matter at Martha’s,” I cried, running through the side gate, father quickly following. Forced to go more slowly up the steep bank, I took in at a glance the group gathered by the porch before I reached them. A short, thick-set woman with dark hair and a flat face was screaming and wringing her hands and embracing the twins alternately. A yellow-haired man with vivid colouring and a pronounced, drooping beak was gesticulating and waving his hands in the air. Mr. Potowski from next door was also gesticulating and trying to explain something to Timothy Saunders, who had him by the collar and was shaking his fist within a thread of his nose, also beaked and drooping. Mrs. Potowski was endeavouring to loosen Timothy’s hold, her entire family jabbering in chorus from the other side of the fence. While on the stoop itself, apron over her head, shaken both with sobbing and the jerky motion of the patent rocking-chair, sat Martha.

Father’s face was stern, indeed, when he reached them.

“Stop this noise instantly, every one of you!” he commanded. “I’ll not have such disgraceful doings on my property.”

The vociferous men and women began to cringe and protest.

“Now, Timothy, tell me what all this means as briefly as you can.”

“Weel, Dochtor, as I make it out, those two came pushin’ in, and claimed Albert and Victoria for their bairns. They’ve lately come from overseas, a month since, they claim, and being held sick in the ship’s hospital, sent on the bairns to his brother, being Potowski there, for safe keeping, but whoever undertook to find _him_ left them at the wrang hoose! To-day the man and woman got freedom, and comin’ on and not findin’ their bairns, took on like crazy ones, till Potowski here pieced twa and twa together and fetched them o’er here!”

“What does he say?” asked father of me, as Potowski began to bow to the ground and gabble in broken yet understandable English.

“He says that if the good grandmother there would like to keep the children, he does not doubt his sister would let her, if she would give money to bring over two more of the six that remain in Poland!” I stammered, my breath fairly leaving me as I realized that Albert and Victoria, with the English complexions and Guelph noses, who were developing either the speech of York or Lancaster, were in reality little Polish Jews! doubtless set within the Saunders’ window to save the Potowskis a month’s care of them.

At the same moment the truth flashed through father’s brain.

“Get out, every one of you, before I get the constable to arrest you for fraud!” he shouted in tones wholly new to him; recovering himself and turning on the Potowskis, “I could make you pay this kind woman here for a month’s board for the youngsters, together with several other things,” he added threateningly, as they did not seem any too willing to go.

“I’d not like to go that far,” whispered Timothy, pulling at father’s coat sleeve; “the bairns hae served their uses, and earned their keep, I’m thinkin’.”

But at threat of the law the women, the most aggressive of the quartet, seized the children and scuttled out of the yard like so many rabbits, fearing lest Martha should remove the new frocks they wore, the men slinking along close to heel.

Then Timothy released a long breath like escaping steam and said that he must go to the milking, adding, “An’, Dochtor, will you see if you can do aught for the woman? She’s sadly fashed by all this business.”

As he passed Martha, Timothy tried to pull the apron from her face, but she held it only the tighter, whispering, “If ever again ye wish to send a money gift to Jennie Fergus, I’m more than willing, the poor young woman.”

“Martha,” said father, when everything was still once more, “I wish that you would go to bed and take a good sleep, and I will send Effie up to set the house straight.”

“I couldn’t sleep the week gone,” she sobbed, yet trying to control herself; “my head’s that empty it reels when I lay me down, and now thinking of the disrespect I’ve put upon our Queen, lays double weight on my chest, and no disrespect was intended.”

“Never mind; go and lie down and tell Timothy to come to me for some medicine before he has supper,” said father, the end of his nose twitching queerly, as it does when he is much amused and doesn’t wish to show it. Martha obeyed.

“Take everything belonging to those children and stow it in the barn loft; straighten up the house, make your aunt a good cup of tea, but don’t talk to her,” he cautioned Effie.

* * * * *

“And what physic is it, Dochtor?” queried cautious Sandy, as father counted eight small white tablets into one paper, and a tablespoonful of white crystals into another, writing the directions on each.

“It’s calomel, two grains in quarters, Timothy, and the other is Rochelle salts; it is a cure for several kinds of distemper, and we two’ll not forget to give it to Martha every year towards the last part of July!”