Humorous stories; Married people -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction
Her first call on us, though, was when she blew in last Sunday afternoon
and announced that she'd come to see "that dear, darling man child" of
ours. And for a girl of her size Amelia is some breeze, take it from me.
Honest, for the first ten minutes or so there I felt like our happy
little home had been hit by a young tornado.
"Where is he?" she demands. "Please take me at once into the regal
presence of his youthful majesty."
I noticed Vee sizin' her up panicky, and I knew she was thinkin' of what
might happen to them spindle-legged white chairs in the nursery.
"How nice of you to want to see him!" says Vee. "But let me have Baby
brought down here. Just a moment."
And she steers her towards a solid built davenport that we'd been
meanin' to have reupholstered anyway. Then we was treated to a line of
high-brow gush as Amelia inspects the youngster through her shell
lorgnette and tries to tell us in impromptu blank verse how wonderful he
is.
"Ah, he is one of the sun children, loved of the high gods," says she,
rollin' her eyes. "He comes to you wearing the tints of dawn and
trailing clouds of glory. You remember how Wordsworth puts it?"
As she fires this straight at me, I has to say something.
"Does he?" I asks.
"I am always impressed," she gurgles on, "by the calm serenity in the
eyes of these little ones. It is as if they----"
But just then Snoodlekins begins screwin' up his face. He's never been
mauled around by a lady poetess before, or maybe it was just because
there was so much of her. Anyway, he tears loose with a fine large howl
and the serenity stuff is all off. It takes Vee four or five minutes to
soothe him.
Meanwhile Miss Leroy gets around to statin' the real reason why we're
bein' honored.
"I understand," says she, "that you have not as yet chosen a name for
him. So I am going to help you. I adore it. I have always wanted to name
a baby, and I've never been allowed. Think of that! My brother has five
children, too; but he would not listen to any of my suggestions.
"So I am aunt to a Walter who should have been called Clifford, and a
Margaret whom I wanted to name Beryl, and so on. Even my laundress
preferred to select names for her twins from some she had seen on a
circus poster rather than let me do it for her.
"But I am sure you are rational young people, and recognize that I have
some natural talent in that direction. Names! Why, I have made a study
of them. I must, you see, in my writing. And this dear little fellow
deserves something fitting. Now let me see. Ah, I have it! He shall be
Cedric--after Cedric the Red, you know."
Accordin' to her, it was all settled. She heaves herself up off the
davenport, straightens her hat, and prepares to leave, smilin'
satisfied, like an expert who's been called in and has finished the job.
"We--we will consider Cedric," says Vee. "Thank you so much."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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