"Couldn't we stay up some night, Judy, and watch? I'd love to see a fairy."
"Oh, oh, see, is it? Me jewel, ye can't see the fairies unless ye have the seeing eye. Ye'd see nothing at all, only just the milk drying up slow, as it were. Now be off to bed wid ye and mind ye don't forget yer prayers or maybe ye'll wake up and find Something sitting on your bed in the night."
"I never do forget my prayers," said Pat with dignity.
"All the better for ye. I knew a liddle girl that forgot one night and a banshee got hold av her. Oh, oh, she was niver the same agin."
"What did the banshee do to her, Judy?"
"Do to her, is it? It put a curse on her, that it did. Ivery time she tried to laugh she cried and ivery time she tried to cry she laughed. Oh, oh, 'twas a bitter punishment. Now, what's after plaguing ye? I can tell be the liddle face av ye ye're not aisy."
"Judy, I keep thinking about that baby in the parsley bed. Don't you think ... they've no baby over at Uncle Tom's. Couldn't you give it to them? Mother could see it as often as she wanted to. We're four of a family now."
"Oh, oh, do ye be thinking four is innything av a family to brag av? Why, yer great-great-grandmother, Old Mrs. Nehemiah, had seventeen afore she called it a day. And four av thim died in one night wid the black cholera."
"Oh, Judy, how could she ever bear THAT?"
"Sure and hadn't she thirteen left, me jewel? But they do say as she was niver the same agin. And now it's not telling ye agin to go to bed I'll be doing ... oh, no, it's not TELLING."
3
Pat tiptoed upstairs, past the old grandfather clock on the landing that wouldn't go ... hadn't gone for forty years. The "dead clock" she and Sid called it. But Judy always insisted that it told the right time twice a day. Then down the hall to her room, with a wistful glance at the close-shut spare-room door as she passed it ... the Poet's room, as it was called, because a poet who had been a guest at Silver Bush had slept there for a night. Pat had a firm belief that if you could only open the door of any shut room quickly enough you would catch all the furniture in strange situations. The chairs crowded together talking, the table lifting its white muslin skirts to show its pink sateen petticoat, the fire shovel and tongs dancing a fandango by themselves. But then you never could. Some sound always warned them and they were back in their places as demure as you please.
Pat said her prayers ... Now I Lay me, and the Lord's Prayer, and then her own prayer. This was always the most interesting part because she made it up herself. She could not understand people who didn't like to pray. May Binnie, now. May had told her last Sunday in Sunday School that she never prayed unless she was scared about something. Fancy that!
Pat prayed for everybody in the family and for Judy Plum and Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith and Aunt Barbara ... and for Sailor Uncle Horace at sea ... and everybody else's sailor uncle at sea ... and all the cats and Gentleman Tom and Joe's dog ... "little black Snicklefritz with his curly tail," so that God wouldn't get mixed up between Joe's dog and Uncle Tom's dog who was big and black with a straight tail ... and any fairies that might be hanging round and any poor ghosts that might be sitting on the tombstones ... and for Silver Bush itself ... dear Silver Bush.
"Please keep it always the same, dear God," begged Pat, "and don't let any more trees blow down."
Pat rose from her knees and stood there a bit rebelliously. Surely she had prayed for everybody and everything she could really be expected to pray for. Of course on stormy nights she always prayed for people who might be out in the storm. But this was a lovely spring night.
Finally she plumped down on her knees again.
"Please, dear God, if there is a baby out there in that parsley bed, keep it warm to-night. Dad says there may be a little frost."
Chapter 4
Sunday's Child
1
It was only a few evenings later that there was a commotion in the house at Silver Bush ... pale faces ... mysterious comings and goings. Aunt Barbara came over with a new white apron on, as if she were going to work instead of visit. Judy stalked about, muttering to herself. Father, who had been hanging round the house all day rather lazily for him, came down from mother's room and telephoned with the dining-room door shut. Half an hour afterwards Aunt Frances came over from the Bay Shore and whisked Winnie and Joe off on an unlooked-for week-end.
Pat was sitting on Weeping Willy's tombstone. She was on her dignity for she felt that she was being kept out of things somehow and she resented it. There was no resorting to mother who had kept her room all the afternoon. So Pat betook herself to the grave- yard and the society of her family ghosts until Judy Plum came along ... a portentously solemn Judy Plum, looking wiser than any mortal woman could possibly be.
"Pat, me jewel, wud ye be liking to spend the night over at yer Uncle Tom's for a bit av a change? Siddy will be going along wid ye."
"Why?" demanded Pat distantly.
"Yer mother do be having a tarrible headache and the house has got to be that still. The doctor's coming ..."
"Is mother bad enough to want a doctor?" cried Pat in quick alarm. Mary May's mother had had the doctor a week before ... and died!
"Oh, oh, be aisy now, darlint. A doctor's just a handy thing to have round whin a body has one of thim headaches. I'm ixpecting yer mother to be fine and dandy be the morning if the house is nice and quiet to-night. So just you and Siddy run over to Swallowfield like good children. And since the moon do be at its full at last I'm thinking it's high time for the parsley bed. No telling what ye'll be seeing here to-morrow."
"That baby, I suppose," said Pat, a little contemptuously. "I should think, Judy Plum, if mother has such a bad headache it's a poor time to bother her with a new baby."
"She's been waiting for it so long I'm looking for it to iffect a miraculous cure," said Judy. "Innyhow, it's tonight or niver wid that moon. It was be way av being just such a night whin I found YOU in the parsley bed."
Pat looked at the moon disapprovingly. It didn't look like a proper moon ... so queer and close and red and lanterny. But it was all of a piece with this odd night.
"Come, skip along ... here's yer liddle nighty in the black satchel."
"I want to wait for Sid."
"Siddy's hunting me turkeys. He'll be over whin he finds thim. Sure, ye're not afraid to go alone? It's only a cat's walk over there and the moon's lit up."
"You know very well, Judy Plum, that I'm not afraid. But things are ... queer ... to-night."
Judy chuckled.
"They do take spells av being that and far be it from me to deny it. Likely the woods are full av witches to-night but they won't be bothering ye if ye mind yer own business. Here's a handful av raisins for ye, same as ye git on Sundays, and niver be bothering yer head wid things ye can't understand."
Pat went over to Swallowfield rather unwillingly, although it was a second home to her ... the adjoining farm where Uncle Tom and Aunt Edith and Aunt Barbara lived. Judy Plum approved of Aunt Barbara, had an old vendetta with Aunt Edith, and had no opinion of old bachelors. A man should be married. If he wasn't he had cheated some poor woman out of a husband. But Pat was very found of big, jolly Uncle Tom, with his nice, growly way of speaking, who was the only man in North Glen still wearing a beard ... a beautiful, long, crinkly black beard. She liked Aunt Barbara, who was round and rosy and jolly, but she was always a little afraid of Aunt Edith, who was thin and sallow and laughterless, and had a standing feud with Judy Plum.
"Born unmarried, that one," Judy had been heard to mutter spitefully.