Mary's Rainbow Part 16

"'M, 'm 'm! How puff.e.c.kly drefful! I wish we had a sweet little baby brother to love and rock in a cradle and sing nice songs to 'stead of jes' dollies what can't hear you. In course, we can be-tend they hear us, but that's not jes' 'zactly the same, you know, d.i.c.k."

"We need another boy in our family, too, Phil says, so we can have a baseball nine. Willie's almost as good as a boy, though. She's a better catch than Jack, anyway, and she's a pretty good batter; but she can't pitch a little bit. Harry says her in curves are punk."

Beth sighed deeply. "We doesn't know what any of those names mean, d.i.c.k. Won't you please 'splain them to us? Seems to me, Berta, they's a drefful many things we has to learn. d.i.c.k knows most ev'ything they is, I'se quite sure."

"Course I don't, Beth. I don't know all my A, B, C's yet. If you had some brothers, you'd have to play baseball with them, and then you'd know as much as I do. We'll have a game this afternoon when Mary and Willie are here. I saw a bat in the barn."

"Oh, oh! Not one of those horrid things we saw flying around last evening-time!"

d.i.c.k chuckled. "I should say not. How'd you 'spect to hit a ball with that thing, Beth? I s'pose you haven't a baseball. Maybe Tom has one."

"But----but isn't we going to name the ama.n.a.ls, d.i.c.k?"

"That's so, Berta, I forgot. Let me see.

Fluff----Fluff----rough----tough----snuff----"

"I doesn't think those are very nice names----"

"Wait a minute, Beth. Puff----m.u.f.f----buff----I say, Berta, how would m.u.f.f do for yours? You said it looks like a ball of fur, and m.u.f.fs are made of fur, aren't they? The one Uncle Frank and Mary gave Willie last Christmas was."

"That's jes' a lovely name, d.i.c.k!"

"And how would you like Puff for yours, Beth? or Buff? That means a kind of a yellow color like the suit I wore yesterday, and your kitten is yellow."

"Let's call it both names, Beth--something like w.i.l.l.y-mean. We'll say Puffy-buff, and then our kitties will be Fluff and m.u.f.f and Puffy-buff; and I'se quite sure they isn't nenny nicer kitty names in the whole world. Now, we'll go name the teapots," and Berta led the way around to the west side of the house in search of the peac.o.c.ks.

"I know a name for that great big one with his tail all spread out.

Let's call him King Cole."

"Beth! That's jes' lovely! And the one over there by the wall ought to be a queen. Can't nennybody 'member a queen's name?"

"'The queen was in the kitchen, eating bread and honey,' and 'The queen of hearts, she made some tarts, all on a summer day,' are all the queens I can think of just now." d.i.c.k puckered his forehead, trying to remember some other royal ladies.

"They was a queen in that fairy story Mary told us yesterday. Doesn't you 'member, Berta?"

"Oh, yes. Queen Mab. That's a nice name."

"Then the two young birds ought to be a prince and a princess."

"But they's two more teapots to name first, d.i.c.k, before we begin with the birds and squirrels and ev'ything same as that."

"But what do you think teapots are----oh, I say, Beth, why don't you call them right? Teapots are things you make tea in." The moment he had spoken, d.i.c.k was sorry. He had never teased the little girls about their mistakes; but it was too much for him when he found himself making the same ones. In dismay, he saw Beth's lips begin to quiver.

"But----but----I thinked----that was what ev'ybody----called them, d.i.c.k."

Berta's dark eyes flashed, and putting her arms around her sister, she began, "And that's jes' 'zactly what I thinked, too, and I said it first that afternoon-time when we came to see Bird-a-Lea, and ev'ybody makes 'stakes sometimes, Daddy says, and I thinked they's two kinds of teapots 'zactly the same as you said they's a bat that flies around and a bat that you hit a ball with, and----and----and I doesn't think it's very p'lite for you to laugh at our 'stakes, so I doesn't."

"Berta! why, _Berta_! Is that the way my little girl speaks to a guest?"

"I----I guess I wasn't a very p'lite guest, Aunt 'Lisbeth. I----I laughed at something Beth said and 'most made her cry; and Mother says a gentleman never makes a lady cry. But she didn't cry," d.i.c.k hastened to add. "They're not cry babies like some of my girl cousins are."

This praise, with his manly way of taking all the blame, quite softened Berta's heart.

"Please 'scuse me for saying such drefful things, d.i.c.k, and you can laugh at our 'stakes all you want to. Mother, what _does_ you think Beth and I called those ama.n.a.ls over there? Teapots! _teapots_! Oh, my dear! Wasn't that jes' too funny! Wasn't that jes' too funny for nennything!" Berta sank on the steps, and even Beth had to join in her merry laugh, while her mother agreed with her: "So funny, dear, that I would be very much surprised if d.i.c.k and Jack, too, did not laugh at you. And it is better to speak of those animals as birds. Say the name after me."

When they had repeated it several times, Berta added, "But we's going to call them other names, Mother,----King Cole and Queen Mab for the father and mother birds; and _can_ you 'member us of a prince and princess for the chillun birds?"

"The young birds, dear. A prince and princess? So you wish to have a royal family, do you? Let me see. What would you think of Prince Charming and Princess Winsome?"

"They're great, Aunt 'Lisbeth!"

"Jes' beauty, Mother!" And the twins danced about in great glee.

"It is time to find Jerry if you wish to take Aunt Mary some fruit and flowers. Come, we shall see whether he is in the garden."

Promptly at eleven o'clock, the four climbed the high front steps at the convent, the little girls with great bundles of flowers, the boys with a basket of peaches and grapes between them. Mother Madeline, busy as she was, took them to her office and gave each of them a pretty holy picture and a little medal, and then sent for Mary and Wilhelmina to look after them. Such a time as the girls made over them. Those who had been with Mary during the lonely years when she had been separated from her little sisters, crowded around the twins in particular, until Mary, fearing that the boys might be hurt, hurried the four away to the Kindergarten. Then the bell rang for dismissal, and with little Dorothy among them, they romped home to luncheon.

CHAPTER XV.

ONLY THE BEGINNING.

"No Beth, I jes' doesn't know _what_ we's going to do 'bout it, so I doesn't." Berta seated herself on the lowest of the front steps, and with her dimpled elbows propped on her knees and her dimpled chin in her hands, stared straight ahead of her, winking very hard. "They isn't nennybody to play with nenny more, not ever, ever at all."

"Not ever, ever at all," came Beth's mournful echo; and all her winking could not keep back two big tears, which trickled down her fair little face.

Mary, with her books under her arm, was just turning the corner of the porch. She stopped and stared at the two on the steps. Then, "'Dear, dear, what can the matter be,'" she sang; and seating herself between them, she put an arm around each.

"They----they isn't nennybody to play with, and we can't have nenny fun, not ever, ever, nenny more at all." Berta gulped hard and winked faster than ever.

"No one to play with! No more fun! Why, haven't you each other? If you only knew it, you are the luckiest little girls in the world. When I was little like you, I would have given all my beautiful picture books and dolls and other toys for a little sister to play with, no matter how old she was. And here you are exactly the same age. And then what about me, I should like to know? Just because I have to go to school for a while every day, aren't you going to play with me any more? and Wilhelmina? and what about all those nice little girls you saw in the Kindergarten yesterday? Why, you just make me laugh when you say such things. Our good times are just beginning, twinnies; don't you know that?"

"But----but, Mary, we----we like d.i.c.k and Jack to stay at our house ev'y single time, so we do, and----and now they's gone home with Aunt Etta, and----and----"

"Of course, Beth, we are all sorry that they couldn't stay longer; but how do you think Uncle Phil and the other boys have been getting along without Aunt Etta? You wouldn't like it so very well if Mother should go away and take me and leave you and Father and Uncle Frank here all alone, would you?"

"N----no, Mary, but----"

"But jes' d.i.c.k and Jack could stay, Mary. Uncle Phil and Aunt Etta has so many chilluns--_nine whole chilluns_, you know; and they's only three in our fambly."

"But with Phil and Harry and Wilhelmina away at school, I am sure they feel that they can't spare any more. Aunt Etta will bring d.i.c.k and Jack to visit us again some time, and then we shall try to keep them longer. We ought to be glad that we have Wilhelmina. Here she comes now with Father."

"But where's Mother, Mary, where's Mother?" There was real fright in the little ones' voices.

"Mother and Uncle have gone into the city to put Aunt Etta and the boys on the train that will take them to Georgia. Father and Wilhelmina went with them only as far as the station in the village, you know, because she had to be back in time for school."

"Well, _my_ good times are over, and I'll have to knuckle down to work now." Wilhelmina sighed deeply as she dropped on the step beside the three.