“What’s its name?”
“Name Willamilla.”
“What?”
“Name Willamilla.”
“Willamilla?” said Daisy. “I never heard it before, but it’s a right pretty name.”
“Yes’m indeed!” the coloured woman agreed enthusiastically. “Willamilla lovin’, happy, gran’ name!”
“What’s the dog’s name?” Laurence asked.
“Hossifer.”
Laurence frowned importantly. “Is he full-blooded?” he inquired.
“Is he who?”
“I guess he isn’t very full-blooded,” Laurence said. “Will he bite?”
“Hossifer?” she said. “Hossifer, he a mighty lovin’ dog! Bite? He ain’ bite nobody. Hossifer, he a lovin’-hearted dog.”
Elsie had come out of her gate, and she bent over the wagon with Daisy. “Oh, my!” she said wistfully. “I do wish we could have this baby to play with.”
“Couldn’t we?” Daisy asked of the baby’s grandmother. “Would you be willing to sell it to us?”
“No’m,” the coloured woman replied, though she manifested no surprise at the question. “No’m; my son-’law, he wouldn’ lem me sell no Willamilla.”
“Well, would you give it to us, then?”
“No’m. Can’ give Willamilla ‘way.”
“Oh, my!” Daisy exclaimed. “I do wish we could have this baby to play with awhile, anyway.”
The woman appeared to consider this, and her processes of considering it interested the children. Her streaked eyes were unusually large and protuberant; she closed them, letting the cumbrous lids roll slowly down over them, and she swayed alarmingly as she did this, almost losing her balance, but she recovered herself, opened her eyes widely, and said:
“How long you want play with Willamilla, honey?”
“Oh!” Daisy cried. “Will you let us? Oh, all afternoon!”
“Listen me,” said Willamilla’s grandmother. “I got errand I love to go on. Wagon push ri’ heavy, too. I leave Willamilla with you lovin’ li’l whi’ chullun, an’ come back free o’clock.”
“Oh, lovely!” Daisy and Elsie both shouted.
“Free o’clock,” said the coloured woman.
“That’ll give us lots o’ time,” said Elsie. “Maybe almost an hour!”
The woman took a parcel from the wagon; it was wrapped in an old newspaper, and its shape was the shape of a bottle, though not that of an infant’s milk-bottle. Also, the cork was not quite secure, and the dampened paper about the neck of this bottle gave forth a faint odour of sweet spirits of niter mingled with the spicy fragrance of a decoction from juniper, but naturally neither the odour nor the shape of the parcel meant anything to the children. It meant a great, great deal to Willamilla’s grandma, however; and her lovingness visibly increased as she took the parcel in her arms.
“I’m go’ take this pice loaf o’ bread to some po’ ole sick folks whut live up the alley ovuh yonnuh,” she said. “Hossifer he go’ stay with Willamilla an’ li’l wagon.” She moved away, but paused to speak to Hossifer, who followed her. “Hossifer, you the lovin’est dog in a wide worl’, but you go on back, honey!” She petted him, then waved him away. “Go on back, Hossifer!” And Hossifer returned to the wagon, while she crossed the street toward the mouth of an alley.
The children stared after her, being even more interested just then in her peculiar progress than they were in their extraordinary new plaything. When the coloured woman reached a point about half way across the street, she found a difficulty in getting forward; her feet bore her slowly sidewise for some paces; she seemed to wander and waver; then, with an effort at concentration, she appeared to see a new path before her, followed it, and passed from sight down the alley.
Behind her she left a strongly favourable impression. Never had Daisy and Elsie met an adult more sympathetic to their wishes or one more easily persuaded than this obliging woman, and they turned to the baby with a pleasure in which there was mingled a slight surprise. They began to shout endearing words at Willamilla immediately, however, and even Master Coy looked upon the infant with a somewhat friendly eye, for he was warmed toward it by a sense of temporary proprietorship, and also by a feeling of congeniality, due to a supposition of his in regard to Willamilla’s sex. But of course Laurence’s greater interest was in Hossifer, though the latter’s manner was not encouraging. Hossifer’s brow became furrowed with lines of suspicion; he withdrew to a distance of a dozen yards or so, and made a gesture indicating that he was about to sit down, but upon Laurence’s approaching him, he checked the impulse, and moved farther away, muttering internally.
“Good doggie!” Laurence said. “I won’t hurt you. Hyuh, Hossifer! Hyuh, Hossifer!”
Hossifer’s mutterings became more audible, his brow more furrowed, and his eyes more undecided. Thus by every means he sought to make plain that he might adopt any course of action whatever, that he but awaited the decisive impulse, would act as it impelled, and declined responsibility for what he should happen to do on the spur of the moment. Laurence made a second effort to gain his confidence, but after failing conspicuously he thought best to return to Willamilla and the ladies.
“My goodness!” he said. “What on earth you doin’ to that baby?”
Chattering in the busiest and most important way, they had taken Willamilla from the wagon and had settled which one was to have the “first turn.” This fell to Daisy, and holding Willamilla in her arms rather laboriously — for Willamilla was fourteen months old and fat — she began to walk up and down, crooning something she no doubt believed to be a lullaby.
“It’s my turn,” Elsie said. “I’ve counted a hunderd.”
“No fair!” Daisy protested at once. “You counted too fast.” And she continued to pace the sidewalk with Willamilla while Elsie walked beside her, insisting upon a rightful claim.
“Here!” Laurence said, coming up to them. “Listen! You’re holdin’ him all sprawled out and everything — you better put him back in the wagon. I bet if you hold him that way much longer you’ll spoil somep’m in him.”
“Him?” Both of his fair friends shouted; and they stared at Laurence with widening eyes. “Well, I declare!” Elsie said pettishly. “Haven’t you even got sense enough to know it’s a girl, Laurence Coy?”
“It is not!”
“It is, too!” they both returned.
“Listen here!” said Laurence. “Look at his name! I guess that settles it, don’t it?”
“It settles it he’s a girl,” Daisy cried. “I bet you don’t even know what her name is.”
“Oh, I don’t?”
“Well, what is it, then?”
“Willie Miller.”
“What?”
“Willie Miller!” Laurence said. “That’s what his own gran’mother said his name was. She said his name’s Willie Miller.”
Upon this the others shouted in derision; and with the greatest vehemence they told him over and over that Willamilla’s name was Willamilla, that Willamilia was a girl’s name, that Willamilla was consequently a girl, that she was a girl anyhow, no matter what her name was, but that her name actually was Willamilla, as her own grandmother had informed them. Grandmothers, Daisy and Elsie explained pityingly, are supposed to know the names of their own grandchildren.
Laurence resisted all this information as well as he was able, setting forth his own convictions in the matter, and continuing his argument while they continued theirs, but finally, in desperation, he proposed a compromise.
“Go on an’ call him Willamilla,” he said bitterly, “ — if you got to! I doe’ care if you haven’t got any more sense’n to call him Willamilla when his real name’s Willie Miller an’ his own gran’mother says so! I’m goin’ to call him Willie Miller till I die; only for heavenses’ sake, hush up!”
The ladies declined to do as he suggested; whereupon he withdrew from the dispute, and while they talked on, deriding as well as instructing him, he leaned
upon the gate and looked gloomily at the ground. However, at intervals, he formed with his lips, though soundlessly, the stubborn words, “His name’s Willie Miller!”
“Oh, I tell you what’d be lovely!” Daisy cried. “Maybe she knows how to walk! Let’s put her down and see — and if she doesn’t know how already, why, we can teach her!”
Elsie gladly fell in with her friend’s idea, and together they endeavoured to place Willamilla upon her feet on the ground. In this they were confronted with insuperable difficulties: Willamilla proved unable to comprehend their intentions; and although Daisy knelt and repeatedly placed the small feet in position, the experiment was wholly unsuccessful. Nevertheless the experimenters, not at all discouraged, continued it with delight, for they played that Willamilla was walking. They heaped praises upon her.
“My darling baby!” Daisy cried. “Doesn’t she walk beautiful?”
“The precious little love!” Elsie echoed. “She just walks beautiful!”
At this the gloomy person in the background permitted himself to sneer. “That ain’t walkin’,” he said.
“It is, too! You doe’ know what you’re talkin’ about!” the chorus of two retorted, not interrupting their procedure.
“He ain’t walkin’,” Laurence maintained.
“She is, too!” said Elsie.
“She’s walkin’ now,” said Daisy. “She’s walkin’ all the time.”
“No, he’s not,” Laurence said. “His feet are sort of curly, and they’re ‘way too wide apart. I bet there’s somep’m the matter with him.”
“There is not!” The two little girls looked round at him indignantly; for this unwarranted intimation of some structural imperfection roused them. “Shame on you!” Daisy said; and to Willamilla: “Show mamma how beautiful she walks.”
“He can’t do it,” Laurence said obdurately. “I bet there is somep’m the matter with him.”
“There is not!”
“Yes, sir,” said Laurence, and he added, with conviction: “His legs ain’t fixed on him right.”
“Shame on you, Laurence Coy!”
But Laurence persisted in his view.
“Listen!” he said, arguing. “Look at my legs. Look at anybody’s legs that can walk. Well, are they fixed on ’em the way his are?”
“Yes, they are!” Daisy returned sharply. “Only hers are fixed on better than yours!”
“They ain’t,” said Laurence. “Mine are fixed on like other people’s, and his are — well, they’re terrable!”
“Oh, isn’t he tiresome?” Elsie said pettishly. “Do be quiet about your ole legs!”
“Yes, do!” said Daisy; and then she jumped up, a new idea lighting her eyes. “I tell you what let’s do,” she cried. “Let’s put her back in the wagon, an’ play we’re takin’ a walk on Sunday with our baby an’ all the family.”
“How’ll we play it?” Elsie asked.
“Well, I’ll be the mamma and push the wagon,” Daisy said excitedly. “Elsie, you be some lady that’s visitin’ us, an’ sort of walk along with us, an’—”
“No,” Elsie interrupted. “I want to be the mamma and push the wagon, an’ you be some lady that’s visitin’ us.”
Daisy looked a little annoyed, but she compromised. “Well, we’ll go a long walk, and I’ll be the mamma the first block, an’ then the next block you can be the mamma, and I’ll be the lady that’s visitin’ us, an’ then the next block it’ll be my turn again.”
“All right,” said Elsie. “What’ll we have Laurence be?”
“We’ll have him be the father.”
Laurence frowned; the idea was rather distasteful to him, and for some reason a little embarrassing. “Listen!” he said. “What do I haf to do?”
“Oh, just walk along and kind of talk an’ everything.”
“Well—” he said uncertainly; then he brightened a little. “I’ll be smokin’ cigars,” he said.
“All right, you can.” And having placed Willamilla in the wagon, Daisy grasped the handle, pushing the vehicle before her. Laurence put a twig in his mouth, puffing elaborately; Elsie walked beside Willamilla; and so the procession moved — Hossifer, still in a mood of indecision, following at a varying distance. And Daisy sang her lullaby as they went.
This singing of hers had an unfavourable effect upon Laurence. For a few minutes after they started he smoked his twig with a little satisfaction and had a slight enjoyment in the thought that he was the head of a family — but something within him kept objecting to the game; he found that really he did not like it. He bore it better on the second and fourth blocks, for Elsie was the mother then, but he felt a strong repulsion when Daisy assumed that relation. He intensely disliked being the father when she was the mother, and he was reluctant to have anybody see him serving in that capacity. Daisy’s motherhood was aggressive; she sang louder and louder, and even without the singing the procession attracted a great deal of attention from pedestrians. Laurence felt that Daisy’s music was in bad taste, especially as she had not yet pulled up her stocking.
She made up the tune, as well as the words, of her lullaby; the tune held beauty for no known ears except her own and these were the words:
“Oh, my da-ar-luh-un baby,
My-y lit-tull baby!
Go to sleep! Go to slee-heep!
Oh, my dear lit-tull baby!
My baby, my dar-luh-un bay-bee,
My bay-bee, my bay-Aay-bee!”
As she thus soothed the infant, who naturally slumbered not, with Daisy’s shrill voice so near, some people on the opposite side of the street looked across and laughed; and this caused a blush of mortification to spread over the face of the father.
“Listen!” he remonstrated. “You don’t haf to make all that noise.”
She paid no attention but went on singing.
“Listen!” said Laurence nervously. “Anyways, you don’t haf to open your mouth so wide when you sing, do you? It looks terrable!”
She opened it even wider and sang still louder:
“My lit-tull baby, my da-ar-luh-un bay-bee!
My bay-heel My bay-Aay-bee!”
“Oh, my!” Laurence said, and he retired to the rear; whereupon Hossifer gave him a look and fell back a little farther. “Listen!” Laurence called to Daisy. “You scared the dog!”
Daisy stopped singing and glanced back over her shoulder. “I did not!” she said. “You scared her yourself.”
“Who?” Laurence advanced to the side of the wagon, staring incredulously. “Who you talkin’ about?”
“She was walkin’ along nice only a little way behind us,” Daisy said, “until you went near her.”
“I went near who?” Laurence asked, looking very much disturbed. “Who was walkin’ along nice?”
“Hossifer was. You said I scared her, and all the time she—”
“Listen!” said Laurence, breathing rapidly. “I won’t stand it. This dog isn’t a girl!”
“Hossifer’s a girl’s name,” said Daisy placidly.
“I bet you never heard of a boy by that name in your life!”
“Well, what if I never?”
“Well,” said Daisy authoritatively, “that proves it. Hossifer’s a girl’s name and you just the same as said so yourself. Elsie, didn’t he say Hossifer isn’t a boy’s name, an’ doesn’t that prove Hossifer’s a girl?”
“Yes, it does,” Elsie returned with decision.
Laurence looked at them; then he shook his head. “Oh, my!” he said morosely, for these two appeared set upon allowing him no colleagues or associates whatever, and he felt himself at the end of his resources.
Daisy began to sing again at once.
“Oh, my dar-lun lit-tull bay-hay-bee-hee!” she sang; and she may have been too vehement for Willamilla, who had thus far remained remarkably placid under her new circumstances; Willamilla began to cry.
She began in a mild way, with a whimper, inaudible on account of the lullaby; then she slightly increased her pro
test, making use of a voice like the tinnier tones of a light saxophone; and having employed this mild mechanism for some time, without securing any relief from the shrillness that bothered her, she came to the conclusion that she was miserable. Now, she was of this disposition: once she arrived at such a conclusion, she remained at it, and nothing could convey to her mind that altered conditions had removed what annoyed her, until she became so exhausted by the protraction of her own protests that she slept, forgot and woke to a new life.
She marked the moment of her decision, this afternoon, by the utterance of a wail that rose high over the singing; she lifted up her voice and used the full power of lungs and throat to produce such a sound that even the heart of the father was disquieted, while the mamma and the visiting lady at once flung themselves on their knees beside the wagon.
“Whassa matta? Whassa matta?” Daisy and Elsie inquired some dozens of times, and they called Willamilla a “peshus baby” even oftener, but were unable to quiet her. Indeed, as they shouted their soothing endearments, her tears reached a point almost torrential, and she beat the coverlet with her small fat hands.
“He’s mad about somep’m, I guess,” the father observed, looking down upon her. “Or else he’s got a spasm, maybe.”
“She hasn’t either,” Daisy said. “She’ll stop in a minute.”
“Well, it might not be spasms,” Laurence said. “But I bet whatever it is, it happened from all that singin’.”
Daisy was not pleased with his remark. “I’ll thank you not to be so kinely complimentary, Mister Laurence Coy!” she said, and she took up Willamilla in her arms, and rather staggeringly began to walk to and fro with her, singing:
“Oh, my peshus litt-lull bay-Aay-bee-hee!”
Elsie walked beside her, singing too, while Willamilla beat upon the air with desperate hands and feet, closed her effervescent eyes as tightly as she could, opened her mouth till the orifice appeared as the most part of her visage, and allowed the long-sustained and far-reaching ululations therefrom to issue. Laurence began to find his position intolerable.
“For heavenses’ sakes!” he said. “If this keeps up much longer, I’m goin’ home. Everybody’s a-lookin’ at us all up an’ down the street! Whyn’t you quit singin’ an’ give him a chance to get over whatever’s the matter with him?”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 503