NOT ONE TOO MANY.
“NO, neighbor, you’ve not one too many,” observed Bridget Macbride, as she stood in the doorway of the cottage of Janet Maclean, knitting coarse gray socks as fast as her fingers could go.
“It’s easy enough for you to say so,” replied Janet, who was engaged in ironing out a shirt, and who seemed to be too busy even to look up as she spoke—“it’s easy enough for you to say so, Bridget Macbride. You’ve never had but three bairns [children] in your life, and your husband he gets good wages. You’d sing to a different tune, I take it, if you’d nine bairns, as I ha’e, the oldest not twelve years old—nine to feed, to clothe, and to house, and to toil and moil for, and your goodman getting but seven shillings a-week, though he’s after the sheep from morning till night!” Mrs. Maclean had been getting quite red in the face as she spoke, but that might have been from stooping over her ironing work.
“Still children are blessings,—at least, I always thought mine so,” observed Bridget Macbride.
“Blessings; yes, to be sure!” cried Janet; “I thought so too till there were so many of them that we had to pack in the cottage like herrings in a barrel.” Janet was now ironing out a sleeve, and required to go rather more gently on with her work. “I’m sure nae folk welcomed little ones more than Tam and I did the four first wee bairns, though many a broken night’s rest we had wi’ poor Jeanie,—and I shall never forget the time when the measles was in our cottage, and every ane o’ the four had it! Yes,” the mother went on, “four we could manage pretty well, with a wee bit o’ pinching and scraping; but then came twins; and then little Davie; and afore he could toddle alane, twins again!” and Janet banged down her iron on its stand, as if two sets of twins were too much for the patience of any parent to endure.
“You must have a struggle to keep them all,” observed Bridget Macbride.
“Struggle! I should say so!” cried Janet, looking more flushed and angry than ever. “We never could have got on at all, had I not taken in washing and ironing; and it’s no such easy matter, I can tell you, to wash and iron fine things for the gentry with twin-babies a-wanting you to look after them every hour in the twenty-four!” It seemed as if the babies had heard themselves mentioned, for from the rude cradle by the fire came a squall, first from one child, and then from both, and poor Janet was several minutes before she could get either of them quiet again.
“You’ve a busy life of it indeed,” observed Bridget, as soon as the weary mother was able once more to take up her iron.
“’Deed you may say so,” replied Janet sharply, plying her iron faster, as if to make up for lost time. “And for all my working, and Tam’s, we can scarce get enough of bread or porridge to fill nine hungry mouths; and as for meat, we don’t see it for weeks and weeks—not so much as a slice of bacon! Then there’s the schooling of the twa eldest bairns to be paid for, as Tam and I won’t ha’e them grow up like heathen savages; and we’ll hae them gae decent too, not in rags and barefooted, like beggars. And I should like to know”—Janet was ironing fast, but talking faster—“I should like to know how shoon [shoes] and sarks [shirts], and a plaidie for this ane, and a bonnet for anither, and breakfasts o’ bannocks, and porridge for supper, are a’ to come out of that wash-tub?”
“And yet,” observed Bridget Macbride, “hard as you have to work for your children, I don’t believe that you would willingly part with one of them, neighbor.”
Even as she spoke, there was a distressful cry of “Mither! mither!” as Janet’s two eldest children burst suddenly into the cottage, looking unhappy and frightened.
“What ails the bairns?” asked Janet anxiously, turning round at the cry.
“O mither, we’ve lost wee Davie; we can’t find him nowhere in the wood, and we be afeard as he may have fallen over the cliff.”
“Davie! my bairn! my darling!” exclaimed poor Janet, forgetting in a moment all her toils and troubles in one terrible fear. Down went the iron on the table, and without waiting to put on bonnet or shawl, the fond mother rushed out of the cottage, to go and search for her child. Bridget had spoken the truth; Janet might complain of the trouble brought by a large family, but she could not bear to part with one out of her flock. If Davie had been the only child of a rich mother, instead of the seventh child of a poor one, he could not have been sought with more eager anxiety, more tender, self-forgetting love.
Followed by several of her children, but outstripping them all in her haste, Janet was soon at the edge of the wood. “Davie! Davie! my bairn! my bairn!” resounded through the forest. The mother’s cry was answered by a distant whoop and halloo;—Janet knew the voice of her husband, and her heart took courage from the sound. But her hope was changed into delight, when she caught a glimpse between the trees of the shepherd coming towards her, with her little yellow-haired laddie Davie perched on his broad shoulders, grasping with one hand his father’s rough locks, and with the other a bannock, which he was nibbling at as he rode.
“The Lord be praised!” cried poor Janet, and rushing forward she caught the child from her husband, pressed Davie closely to her heart, and burst into a flood of grateful tears.
“You must look a bit better after your stray lamb, Janet,” said Tam with a good-humored smile. “I was just crossing the wood when Trusty set up a barking which made me go out o’ my way just to see if he had found a rabbit, or started a blackcock. There was our wean [child] sitting much at his ease, munching a bannock, as contented and happy as if he’d been a duke eating venison out of a golden dish. But you mustna let the wee bairn wander about by himsel’, for if he’d gaen over the cliff, we’d never hae heard the voice o’ our lammie again.”
Very joyful and very thankful was Janet Maclean, as, with her boy in her arms, she returned to her cottage. Bridget had remained there to take care of the twins during the absence of their mother. Mrs. Macbride received her neighbor with a smile, and the words, “Didna I say, Janet, that ye’d not one too many, nor would willingly part wi’ a single bairn out o’ your nine?”
“The Lord forgie my thankless heart!” said poor Janet, and she fondly kissed her boy. “We ne’er are grateful enough for our blessings until we are like to lose them.” Then putting the little child down on the brick floor, with fresh courage and industry the mother returned to her ironing again.
May we not hope that all Janet’s toil and hard work for her children had one day a rich reward? May we not hope that not one out of the nine, when old enough and strong enough to labor for her who had labored so hard for them, but did his best to repay her care and her love? How large is a parent’s heart, that opens wide and wider to take in all the children of her family, however numerous those children may be! Though each new babe adds to poor parents’ toils, and takes from their comforts, still the kind father and the fond mother, as they look round their home circle of rosy faces, can not only say but feel, “There is not one too many.”
