Donald Henderson Clarke - Lady Ann

“It’s part of a woman’s chores to keep a man well fed.”

Elihu sat at the organ in the front parlor and pumped with his feet, and pushed and pulled stops with his fingers, and thumped keys, and made a wheezy dirge which was supposed to be:

There Is A Fountain Filled With Blood.

This was the only tune that Elihu could play, either on the organ or on any instrument. He was tone deaf, and flatted when he tried to raise his bass voice in song. But he played There Is a Fountain only when he was in high spirits, so Naomi sat and listened to him, a smile on her lips and a bit of baby-size sewing in hand.

“If it’s a boy we’ll call him Elihu,” she said.

He frowned at her and exclaimed:

“You know I don’t like that name. Call him William, or Robert or James, or something like that.”

“And if it’s a girl we’ll call her Ann, after your mother,” Naomi said.

“I hope it’s a girl,” he said.

She turned her head to one side and looked at him from the corners of her eyes, which was a trick she had, and said:

“You’re only saying that to make me feel good.”

“No, I’m not. I know you want a daughter, and I want what you want.”

“No, you don’t. I know. You want a son because there aren’t any more Steeles.”

He got up, walked over and kissed her. She smiled up at him and asked:

“Isn’t it wonderful, after twelve years?”

“It certainly is,” he said.

“I pray every night and every morning for a boy,” she said. “A son for you.”

He grinned and patted her clumsily on the back.

“If you’re happy that’s all I ask, Little Girl.”

Her legs swelled, and he sat and rubbed them by the hour. He said:

“The most beautiful legs in the world.”

“They’re not so pretty now,” she said dubiously.

He kissed her tiny feet.

“Cinderella feet,” he said.

“I have nice feet,” she admitted.

Dr. Benham came to see her. He was fifty, a big man with a big head of iron-gray hair, a tawny mustache and a Vandyke beard. His head trembled the least bit, and his hands trembled, a tremor just barely perceptible. His yellow-brown eyes against a background of weather-beaten cheekbone, white forehead and Roman nose always looked tired but wonderfully sympathetic. She said:

“I didn’t want to tell Elihu about the pain. I would only upset him.”

He petted her hand, and said:

“Everything will be all right. You’re a good soldier, Naomi.”

Snow was falling heavily on the tenth of January when Dr. Benham walked out of the bedroom into the parlor and took hold of Elihu’s sleeve.

“What is it, Doc?” Elihu asked.

“Now don’t get excited,” Dr. Benham said. “I guess the baby is coming sooner than we expected.”

Elihu swallowed, blood receding from his cheeks. The doctor continued:

“But everything will be all right,” he said. “I thought, though, that you might help me build an incubator.”

Elihu tried to speak, and failed. He made another effort, and said:

“Naomi.”

“Look here,” Dr. Benham said. “Naomi is going to be all right, and the baby is going to be all right. We’ll just have to make some preparations. Among other things, I’ll need a box . . .”

Dr. Benham began to describe what he wanted in the way of incubators, walking with Elihu toward his shop in the barn where he kept his tools.

An hour later, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Dr. Benham said to Elihu:

“Never mind working any more on that incubator. Have you got a clothes basket?”

“Certainly, Doc. Is . . .”

“Everything is all right,” Dr. Benham asserted. “But you hurry and get me the clothes basket.”

Elihu hurried away and Ma Smith said:

“I could’ve got the basket.”

Dr. Benham grinned, showing yellow teeth through nicotined stained hair of mustache and beard. He said:

“I know you could, Ma. But we’ve got to keep Elihu busy or we’ll have him for our patient next. I could have the nurse get hot-water bottles and blankets, but I’m going to have Elihu get ’em.”

Elihu was walking up and down in the hall when a baby wailed inside. Elihu leaned up against the wall. A minute later Dr. Benham poked his head into the hall. He said:

“Come here, Elihu.”

The doctor held out his right hand, and on it lay a red, puckered bundle of flesh and blood. The bundle opened a toothless mouth, balled microscopic but perfect fists, and howled a Lilliputian howl. Elihu bent over, staring, afraid to breathe. The doctor said:

“Little girl baby. Cute, ain’t she? Three pounds, and perfect.”

“But Naomi?”

“She’s fine,” Dr. Benham said heartily.

Miss Dolly, the trained nurse, black-haired, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked, efficient, came to the door, and said:

“Do you want me to take her now, Dr. Benham?”

It was apparent that Miss Dolly disapproved of this exhibition of the newborn. Dr. Benham replied:

“Just a minute, Miss Dolly.”

Ma Smith, who had been hovering in the background, exclaimed:

“I never heard the like of it, Doctor—exposing that baby . . .”

Dr. Benham laughed, and said to Elihu:

“Just take off your ring a minute.”

Elihu removed the circlet of gold from his ring finger. The doctor added:

“Now just slip it over her hand.”

Elihu hesitated, hand shaking. The doctor held up the tiny fist, and exclaimed impatiently:

“Go ahead, Elihu. You can’t hurt her.”

Elihu applied the ring to the fist, gently and clumsily. The doctor said:

“Go ahead and push it up. Go ahead.”

Elihu pushed it too slowly to satisfy the doctor, who put his own fingers to the task and pushed the ring half-way up the tiny arm.

“Look at that, Elihu,” he said. “Your ring went up to her elbow. Always remember that when she’s a big woman.”

“Haven’t you played with that baby long enough?” Ma Smith demanded.

Dr. Benham pulled off the ring and handed it to Elihu. He held out the baby on the palm of his hand toward Miss Dolly, and said:

“Just look at that now. If that isn’t one of the most wonderful sights in the world!”

“Can I see Naomi?” Elihu asked.

“Sure, Elihu,” Dr. Benham replied.

Elihu hurried into the bedroom. Miss Dolly took the baby. Dr. Benham said:

“Wait a minute. We’ve got to measure her.”

The baby was seventeen and one-half inches long; her wrist was two and seven-eighths inches in circumference, and her left foot was two and seven-eighths inches long.

After she was put in her basket, surrounded by hot-water bottles and covered with a blanket so that only a peep-hole was left, Dr. Benham said to Miss Dolly:

“Do you ever wonder what’s going to happen in life to one of them?”

Miss Dolly said:

“No, Doctor, I don’t. I’m generally so busy looking after them that I don’t have much time for wondering about them.”

Dr. Benham crooked his right elbow, and fished with his right hand in his upper left-hand waistcoat pocket. He brought out a long, light-colored cigar, Connecticut tobacco, strong and harsh. He bit off the end and spit it out on the hall carpet. He crossed his left foot over his right knee, and moved rapidly across the sole of his left boot a sulphur match. He held it until the blue flame had changed to yellow and the suffocating odor of sulphur had dissipated. Then he touched the flame to the end of the cigar and puffed. Clear, blue, pungent smoke rose in clouds. Miss Dolly held out her hand:

“I’ll take the match,” she said.

He handed her the burnt match, took the cigar from his lips, looked at the ignited end, sighed, and said:

“You know what the poet said about the way an astronomer feels when he first sees a new planet? Well, that’s the way I feel when I first see a newborn baby. And I wonder, now, what the dickens is going to happen to this human mite?”