"I'd like to accommodate you, Jean," he said, laughing and catching her hand with an affectionate look, although he is usually very timid and dignified, "but the fact is--may I tell, Merle?" And the way _he_ said "Merle" sounded like a whole _box_ of marshmallows. Miss Merle smiled at him and then he told Jean if she would every _bit_ as soon have it that way, he would be her uncle instead of her future husband. I was so afraid that she would faint or die right there in the pasture that I told them I heard mother calling me and ran as hard as I could tear. She came over this afternoon to tell me all about it and was feeling strong enough to eat a small basket of wild goose plums. "Oh, it was a terrible shock at first," she said, stopping long enough to spit out a seed, "but the _minute_ he said _uncle_ my love changed. Why, Ann, an uncle is an _old_ person, almost like a grandpa! Anyway, they've promised that I shall be in the wedding, dressed in a pair of beautiful white silk stockings." CHAPTER X It ain't any easy matter to keep a diary with a baby in the house, especially if he's at the _watchable_ age, although he's such a darling one that you don't begrudge him the trouble he makes. Before you more than get a sentence set down you have to drop everything and run and jerk the palm-leaf fan out of his hands, which he takes great pleasure in ramming the handle of down his throat. Then he eats great handsful of the Virginia Creeper leaves if you leave him on the porch for a minute by himself. And at times he won't be satisfied with anything on earth unless you turn up the mattress and let him beat on the bed-springs, which I consider a smart idea and think Cousin Eunice ought to write out and send to a magazine under the head of "Hints for Tired Mothers." But I say it again, there don't any of us begrudge him these many little ways, although it's hard to be literary with them; for when he smiles and "pat-a-cakes" and says "Ah! ah!" you don't care if you never write another line. Mother made Cousin Eunice turn over the raising of him to her the very day she got here, for everybody knows, my diary, how a lady that's ever raised a baby feels toward a lady that's just owned one a few months. "No _flannel_ on this precious child!" mother almost screamed the minute we got him off the train and started to drive home. "Why, it's positively flying in the face of Providence to leave his band off this early!" And mother looked at Cousin Eunice like she had done it a-purpose. "Oh, Aunt Mary, please don't," poor Cousin Eunice said like she was about to cry. "For the last eleven months there has been scarcely a thing discussed in my presence but _belly-bands_!" (There weren't any men around.) "It seems if a woman ever has one baby her thoughts never travel away from flannel bands afterward!" "But pneumonia! Cholera infantum! Teething!" Mother kept on, hugging Waterloo close.