“I know,” replied Emmeline.
Mrs. James’s baby, seen in the long ago, had risen up before their mind’s eyes, a messenger from the past to explain what the new thing was. Then she told him things—things that completely shattered the old “cabbage bed” theory, supplanting it with a truth far more wonderful, far more poetical, too, to he who can appreciate the marvel and the mystery of life.
“It has something funny tied on to it,” she went on, as if she were referring to a parcel she had just received.
“Let’s look,” said Dick.
“No,” she replied; “leave it alone.”
She sat rocking the thing gently, seeming oblivious to the whole world, and quite absorbed in it, as, indeed, was Dick. A physician would have shuddered, but, perhaps fortunately enough, there was no physician on the island. Only Nature, and she put everything to rights in her own time and way.
When Dick had sat marvelling long enough, he set to and lit the fire. He had eaten nothing since the day before, and he was nearly as exhausted as the girl. He cooked some breadfruit, there was some cold fish left over from the day before; this, with some bananas, he served up on two broad leaves, making Emmeline eat first.
Before they had finished, the creature in the bundle, as though it had smelt the food, began to scream. Emmeline drew the scarf aside. It looked hungry; its mouth would now be pinched up and now wide open, its eyes opened and closed. The girl touched it on the lips with her finger, and it seized upon her fingertip and sucked it. Her eyes filled with tears, she looked appealingly at Dick, who was on his knees; he took a banana, peeled it, broke off a bit and handed it to her. She approached it to the baby’s mouth. It tried to suck it, failed, blew bubbles at the sun and squalled.
“Wait a minute,” said Dick.
There were some green coconuts he had gathered the day before close by. He took one, removed the green husk, and opened one of the eyes, making an opening also in the opposite side of the shell. The unfortunate infant sucked ravenously at the nut, filled its stomach with the young coconut juice, vomited violently, and wailed. Emmeline in despair clasped it to her naked breast, wherefrom, in a moment, it was hanging like a leech. It knew more about babies than they did.
XIV
Hannah
At noon, in the shallows of the reef, under the burning sun, the water would be quite warm. They would carry the baby down here, and Emmeline would wash it with a bit of flannel. After a few days it scarcely ever screamed, even when she washed it. It would lie on her knees during the process, striking valiantly out with its arms and legs, staring straight up at the sky. Then, when she turned it on its face, it would lay its head down and chuckle and blow bubbles at the coral of the reef, examining, apparently, the pattern of the coral with deep and philosophic attention.
Dick would sit by with his knees up to his chin, watching it all. He felt himself to be part proprietor in the thing—as indeed he was. The mystery of the affair still hung over them both. A week ago they two had been alone, and suddenly from nowhere this new individual had appeared.
It was so complete. It had hair on its head, tiny fingernails, and hands that would grasp you. It had a whole host of little ways of its own, and every day added to them.
In a week the extreme ugliness of the newborn child had vanished. Its face, which had seemed carved in the imitation of a monkey’s face from half a brick, became the face of a happy and healthy baby. It seemed to see things, and sometimes it would laugh and chuckle as though it had been told a good joke. Its black hair all came off and was supplanted by a sort of down. It had no teeth. It would lie on its back and kick and crow, and double its fists up and try to swallow them alternately, and cross its feet and play with its toes. In fact, it was exactly like any of the thousand-and-one babies that are born into the world at every tick of the clock.
“What will we call it?” said Dick one day, as he sat watching his son and heir crawling about on the grass under the shade of the breadfruit leaves.
“Hannah,” said Emmeline promptly.
The recollection of another baby once heard about was in her mind; and it was as good a name as any other, perhaps, in that lonely place, notwithstanding the fact that Hannah was a boy.
Koko took a vast interest in the new arrival. He would hop round it and peer at it with his head on one side; and Hannah would crawl after the bird and try to grab it by the tail. In a few months so valiant and strong did he become that he would pursue his own father, crawling before him on the grass, and you might have seen the mother and father and child playing all together like three children, the bird sometimes hovering overhead like a good spirit, sometimes joining in the fun.
Sometimes Emmeline would sit and brood over the child, a troubled expression on her face and a faraway look in her eyes. The old vague fear of mischance had returned—the dread of that viewless form her imagination half pictured behind the smile on the face of Nature. Her happiness was so great that she dreaded to lose it.
There is nothing more wonderful than the birth of a man, and all that goes to bring it about. Here, on this island, in the very heart of the sea, amidst the sunshine and the windblown trees, under the great blue arch of the sky, in perfect purity of thought,
