Heart of Gold Part 9

"Oh!" Mr. Strong was enlightened. "There is no set time in our church for christening babies, dear. We call it baptizing in our church, and sometimes parents don't have their children baptized until they are old enough to understand for themselves what it means."

"Then you won't be having the twins chris--baptizzened for some time yet!"

"No, probably not until Children's Day--"

"Why, that's already gone by! There won't be another until next summer!"

"Next June. But that is usually the time we perform that ceremony in our church, although any other time is just as good."

"Well, I'll have your children named by that time,--don't you fret.

Allee, won't you bring me 'Hill's Evangel' from the Library? I 'member that has strings of names in it."

"'Hill's Manual,'" corrected the preacher, picking up his hat and preparing to depart.

"Is it? St. John says it is 'Hill's Emanuel,'" she called after the fleeing sister. "It's a big dirty-red book and you will find it in the furthest corner of the bookcase on the next to the lowest shelf. Why, St. John, must you hustle away so soon? You've hardly got here yet.

Perhaps I could have some names ready for you to take home with you if you'd wait a while longer."

"Thanks, Peace," he bowed courteously. "But I must hurry home and mind the kiddies. There is no one there to look after them and Elspeth except the nurse and Aunt Pen. I told them I shouldn't be gone but a few minutes, and here it is almost an hour. Good-bye, Peace. Good-bye, Cherry. I'll come again soon."

"Good-bye, St. John, and next time bring the twins with you."

"O, Peace," gasped Allee, who was just returning with the heavy book in her short arms, and overheard the sister's parting admonition; "they're too fresh yet. Grandma says it will prob'ly be several weeks 'fore they get taken anywhere."

The preacher, convulsed with laughter, glanced back over his shoulder and seeing the look of disappointment in the brown eyes, rashly promised, "This shall be the first place they visit, girlies, and we'll bring them just as soon as they are old enough."

So he swung out of sight down the driveway, and Peace turned to her delightful task of finding suitable names for the little strangers at the parsonage.

"They ought to begin with the same letter," suggested Cherry, wishing it had fallen to her lot to name a pair of twins, "like Hazel and Helen Bean."

"Or else rhyme with each other," put in excited Allee, thinking it a most wonderful privilege which had been granted Peace, "like Pearl and Beryl Whittaker."

"Or they might suggest the same thing," ventured Hope, who had heard the good news and had come out to see what progress the favored sister was making. "For instance, Opal and Garnet Ordway. The opal and the garnet are precious stones, you know."

"_These_ twins are precious babies," interrupted Peace in decided accents, "and we shan't call them such heathenish names as stones. This book, now, has a long line of names,--here it is,--and there ought to be some pretty ones amongst them, though I can't say the _a's_ sound very nice. There is only one decent one in the bunch and that's Abigail."

Hope, leaning over the back of her chair, scanned the list beginning with _a's_ and thoughtfully read aloud, "Abigail, Achsa, Ada, Adaline, Addie, Adela, Adelaide, Adora, Agatha, Agnes, Alethea, Alexandra, Alice, Almeda, Amanda, Amarilla, Amy, Angeline, Anna, Annabel, Antoinette, Augusta, Aurelia, Aurora, Avis,--that last one isn't so bad--"

"It isn't so good, either," Peace retorted. "It sounds like the thing you fall into when you tumble off a steep mountain. I wouldn't want a baby of mine called that."

"Abyss, you mean," suggested Hope, when the other sisters looked mystified. "No one else would ever think of such a thing."

"No one else needs to. I'd do thinking enough for all if I tacked such a name on a little baby that couldn't help itself."

It was very evident that Peace had taken a deep dislike to the name, so Hope said no more, and they turned their attention to the next letter with no better success. Peace was too critical to be easily satisfied, and when the whole list had been thoroughly considered several times, she sighed, "There is only one nice name on the page."

"And that is--?" Hope ventured.

"Elizabeth."

"But that is Mrs. Strong's name!" all three chorused.

"Don't I know it? And can't a baby be named for its mother? Gail was.

The only trouble is there is no other pretty name to go with it.

Nothing rhymes with it, and none of the other _e's_ are nice enough."

"Hasn't Mrs. Strong a sister named Esther?" asked Cherry, consulting the list again.

"Ye--s, but since I knew Esther Kern, I've lost my liking for that name.

I can't bear to think of one of those lovely twins growing up into such a pug-nosed, freckle-faced sauce-box."

"Well, here is 'Evelyn,'--that is pretty enough, I'm sure."

"And Evelyn Smiley would say the baby was named for her. I'd sooner call it Peace, and be done with it."

"Then how about Edith, for Miss Smiley?"

"It's too short. Elizabeth has four pieces to it, and it wouldn't be fair to give less than four to the other one."

So the search for a name went on, and each succeeding day found Peace no nearer her goal. Whenever the busy pastor appeared for a brief chat, she had to own defeat, and beg for a little more time. One day a brilliant thought occurred to her, and the next time the preacher's shining black head appeared at the gate he was greeted with the excited yell, "What is Elspeth's middle name? It isn't right to call one baby after its mother and the other after n.o.body."

"Elspeth has no middle name--"

"Neither have I," sighed Peace. "When I marry, my middle name will be Greenfield, but until then I haven't got any."

"That's the way with Elizabeth."

"I was afraid it would be, but I hoped she would be more fortunate than me."

Another idea buzzed through her brain.

"What's _your_ middle name? Maybe we could make something out of that."

"I am afraid not," he smiled. "I was named John Solomon, after my two doting grandfathers."

"Solomon!" she echoed in great disappointment. "Mercy! I wouldn't name a cat that!"

"Neither would I," he agreed quite cheerfully, and Peace returned to the much thumbed 'Hill's Manual' once more to consider the list of _e's_.

"I've a notion to call the Tiniest One Evangeline," she mused. "It's exactly as long and almost as pretty. Only it sounds so much like these preachers that get up and rage and dance all over the pulpit while they are trying to think of what they meant to say. I should hate to think of either twin growing up to be a woman preacher, 'specially the Tiniest One. I always wanted to call _her_ Elizabeth, 'cause she is so much gooder than the Tiny One, but St. John says she has dark eyes. Elspeth's are blue, so it ought to be the blue-eyed baby that's named for her, I s'pose, even if it does cry more. Mercy, in another two days the month will be up, and I _must_ have those names by then. It's hard work always to say the Tiny One and the Tiniest One."

Again she fell into a brown study, but two days later found her as undecided as ever, and she concluded to ask for just one more week in which to make up her mind. However, when Mr. Strong appeared for his brief visit that morning, his face looked so sadly grave as he bent over the crippled child to give her his usual kiss of greeting that she cried apprehensively, "What's the matter, St. John! Has anything happened to the twins?"

"One of them--the Tiniest One--flew away with the angels last night," he answered simply, turning his face away that she might not witness his grief.

For a moment his reply dazed her; then she threw both arms about his neck, and burst into tears, sobbing as if her heart would break, while he dumbly sought to soothe her sorrow, by cuddling her head on his shoulder and rubbing his quivering cheek against hers, for he could not trust his voice to speak.

The first outburst of grief over, Peace shook the tears from her eyes, loosened her strangling grasp about his neck and gulped, "Well, that makes the naming of them easier, doesn't it, St. John! I was so fussed up to find something nice enough to go with Elizabeth, but now we'll just call the Tiniest One 'Angel Baby' and be glad that G.o.d didn't lug off both twins. But oh, I do wish He had waited a little while longer until I could have seen the two live twins."