PART VI: BABY Chapter 1

TOM did not come home till March, and the baby had been christened before he arrived, Thyrza having proved too soft to resist ecclesiastical pressure. But her husband was not so disappointed as she had feared. Indeed, Tom’s whole attitude towards the miracle she had wrought in his absence puzzled her a little.

She had met him at the cottage door with the baby in her arms, and after their first greeting he had said:

“Put the baby down, Thyrza. I can’t kiss you praaperly.” Then, with his face hidden in her neck, had murmured: “It’s my wife I want.”

“But aun’t you justabout pleased wud your boy, dear?” she asked him later, when they were having tea and eggs in a cosy blur of firelight and sunshine.

“Reckon I am. But babies are unaccountable ugly; and as fur hoalding him, I’d sooner nuss a dud shell.”

“He aun’t ugly, Tom; everyone says he’s a justabout lovely child—and weighs near fourteen pounds, which is valiant fur a boy of his months.”

“Maybe—I know naun of babies. But you, Thyrza ... reckon you’re justabout the waonder of the world to me.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she felt his hand groping for hers on her knees under the table.

“Reckon you’re just another baby,” she said tenderly. [242] “And I’m the mother of you both.”