People of the Whirlpool | Page 4

been basking in sun vigour relax and their
colours are subdued, blended by the brush of darkness, and the night
wind steals new perfumes from them, and wings of all but a few night
birds have ceased to cleave the air. As you walk among the flowers and
touch them, or throw back the casement and look out, you read new
meanings everywhere. In the white cribs in the alcove the same change
comes, bright eyes, hair, cheeks, and lips lie blended in the shadow, the
only sound is the even breath of night, and when you press your lips
behind the ear where a curl curves and neck and garments meet, there
comes a little fragrance born of sweet flesh and new flannel, and the
only motion is that of the half-open hand that seems to recognize and
closes about your fingers as a vine to its trellis, or as a sleeping bird
clings to its perch.
A gardener or a nurse is equally a door between one and these silent
pleasures, for who would not steal up now and then from a troubled
dream to satisfy with sight and touch that the babes are really there and
all is well?
* * * * *
Richard has a clinging way even in sleep, and his speech, though very
direct for his age, is soft and cooing; he says "mother" in a lingering
tone that might belong to a girl, and there are what are called feminine

traits in him.
Ian (to save confusion, we called him from the first by the pretty Scotch
equivalent of Evan's first name) is of a wholly masculine mould, and
like his father in light hair, gray eyes, and determination. His very
speech is quick and staccato, his tendency is to overcome, to fight
rather than assuage, though he is the champion of everything he loves.
From the time he could form distinct sounds he has called me Barbara,
and no amount of reasoning will make him do otherwise, while the
imitation of his father's pronunciation of the word goes to my heart.
Recently, now that he is fully able to comprehend, Evan took him
quietly on his knee and told him that he must say "mother" and that he
was not respectful to me. He thought a few minutes, as if reasoning
with himself, and then the big gray eyes filled with tears, a very rare
occurrence, as he seemed to feel that he could not yield, and he said,
trying very hard to steady his voice, "Favver, I truly can't, I _think it
muvver inside, but you and I, we must say it Barbara," and I confess
that my heart leaped with joy, and I begged Evan to let the matter end
here. To be called, if it so may be, by one name from the beginning to
the end of life by the only true lovers that can never be rivals, is bliss
enough for any woman.
Equally resolved, but in a thing of minor importance, is Ian about his
headgear. As a baby of three, when he first tasted the liberty of going
out of garden bounds daily into the daisy field beyond the wild walk,
while Richard clung to his protecting baby sunbonnet, Ian spurned head
covering of any kind, and blinked away at the sun through his tangled
curls whenever he had the chance, in primitive directness until his
cheeks glowed like burnished copper; and his present compromise is a
little cap worn visor backward.
When the twins were very young, people were most funny in the way
in which they seemed to think it necessary to feel carefully about to
make sure whether condolence or congratulations were in order. The
Severely Protestant was greatly agitated, as, being himself the
possessor of an overflowing quiverful, his position was difficult. After
making sure which was the right side of the fence, and placing himself
on it, he tugged painfully at his starved red beard, and made an
elaborate address ending in a parallel,--the idea of the complete Bible
being in two volumes, the Old and New Testament, each being so

necessary to the other, and so inseparable, that they were only
comparable to twins!
Father and Evan were present at the time,--I dared not look at
either,--and as soon as we were again alone, the room shook with
laughter, until Martha Corkle, who was then in temporary residence,
popped in to be sure that I was not being unduly agitated.
"The Old and New Testament, I wonder which is which?" gasped
father, going upstairs to look at the uninteresting if promising woolly
bundles by light of this startling suggestion.
Now, however, the joke has developed a serious side, as their two
characters, though in no wise precocious, have become distinctive.