Short stories, American; United States -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
Dinah was complete save for her shoes, which were already cut from a
pair of old kid gloves, and her name. I remember her creator wished
to call her Lillian, but with all the wisdom of my five full-fledged
years well to the fore, I suggested that it would be well for all
of us to leave the christening to Miss Marie, herself. And she of
thirty-five years bent her head to my five, and the name of Lillian
floated back to the limbo from which it had been so briefly called. As
the second shoe was taken up, Marie showed signs of waking, and the
newly created one was thrust into my hands, and I was told to go and
give it to the little tot. But deep down in my soul I said, “Nay! Nay!”
for mark you, I was a canny child, and ten years of life’s experiences
had been crowded into my five of actual time, and hell and bitter
punishments took prominent places in the religion thus far made known
to me. I said to myself therefore: “This child _is_ wicked, for all
she is so pretty, she’s _awful_, and if for her punishment she is to
be frightened to death by the sight of this nameless thing, I don’t
intend to be the instrument used in her undoing!” So, swiftly I crept
to the great crib-bed, and in a moment crept away again, leaving across
her stomach, like a hideous nightmare, that “deed without a name,” and
then I fled to the hall and waited for things, behind the partly open
door; wondering which of the little cups and glasses on a stand by the
bed, holding cooling drinks, would strike the door first. I waited and
watched. Marie’s eyes opened, a scowl instantly darkened her face; in a
querulous tone she asked, “Is my mamma, home, now?”
The voice of the sempstress answered gently, “No, dear,” and a light
like sunshine came into her brilliant eyes; she smiled sweetly and
asked, “Where’s my Cawie?” her name for me, and as near as she could
get to Carrie, and then she felt the weight across her, and the moment
had come!
She lifted the thing, and they were face to face. The child’s eyes
opened wider and wider, the pupils dilated, the lids flickered
nervously, then came a faint, long-drawn “Oh--h--h!” another pause,
broken at last by the announcement, calmly and gravely made, “She eyes,
don’t fit each other!”
Marie had trouble with her personal pronouns, as well as with her
relatives.
Next moment she rolled over and began to scramble into a sitting
posture, during which she all unconsciously pressed the doll tightly
against her little chest. (Oh, for us, happy accident!) for the next
instant, with a shout of surprise and joy, she cried, “Oh, she cuddles,
she cuddles!”
Two words which were to become familiar to every member of the family,
in the time to come, “She cuddles, and she is Dinah, my peshous! Dinah,
always!”
And she who had thought of Lillian rashly exclaimed, “But why on earth,
Dinah?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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