VI
Bobbetty’s hand was flung out and fell, soft and limp, across Mrs. Champney’s face. She opened her eyes. The dawn was stealing into the room, coming like music. One drowsy little bird was awake in the world, piping sweetly. The breeze came, fluttering the window curtain, and it seemed to her that she could hear the footsteps of the glorious sun coming up the sky. All creation waited for him—waited breathless, to break into a great chorus of ecstasy when he appeared.
Bobbetty was waking, too. His hard little head bumped against her shoulder. His toes moved softly, he scowled, his great black eyes opened, he looked sternly into her face, and then he smiled.
“Gramma!” he said contentedly, and sat up.
“We must be very quiet, not to wake mother,” said Mrs. Champney.
“Why?” asked Bobbetty.
In his superb arrogance he looked upon his mother somewhat as he looked upon the sun. She existed solely for him. He adored her and he needed her—that was why she existed. Mrs. Champney did not trouble to explain. He would learn soon enough how very many other people there were in this world, and that it was not his own world and his own sun at all. In the meantime, let him make the most of it. She said that they would surprise mother, and the idea appealed to Bobbetty. He said he would be as quiet as a mouse, and so he was.
Mrs. Champney got his ridiculous little garments and dressed him. She knelt at his feet to put on his stubby sandals. She even kissed his feet, and his hands, and his warm, olive-tinted cheeks, and the back of his neck. He smiled upon her, condescendingly but kindly.
Then she carried him down into the kitchen. He was a plump and sturdy baby, but he was no burden to her arms. She wasn’t tired now. Indeed, she thought she had never in her life felt so gay and light and happy.
The sun had come, and the kitchen was filled with it. The aluminium saucepans glittered like silver, and the water ran out of the tap in a rainbow spray. She laid the table in the dining room, and Bobbetty followed her back and forth, carrying the less dangerous things.
There was a wonderful perfume in the air—the intangible sweetness of spring—and with it, and no less wonderful, was the homely fragrance of coffee and oatmeal and bacon. It was a divine hour, and Bobbetty knew it. Bobbetty could share it with her—he and he alone.
He dropped a loaf of bread that he was carrying, and, moved by impulse, kicked it across the room. Mrs. Champney picked it up, without a word of reproof. She knew how Bobbetty felt.
Then she drew the chairs up to the table—and made her great discovery.
“There are four chairs!” she cried aloud. “There are four of us! Why, I’m not the third person at all!”
She was so overcome by this that she sat down, and stared before her with a dazed look.
“There were three already—I’m the fourth, and four’s such a nice number! I can’t go away and leave Robert and Molly alone together. They’ll never be alone together any more—there’s Bobbetty. I can help so much! They’re both so very, very young, and I could do so much! Molly could have time for music. There are two buttons off Bobbetty’s underwaist. Mother-in-law, indeed!”
She heard the percolator boiling too hard, and she got up. In the kitchen doorway she met Bobbetty with the bowwow.
“Bobbetty!” she said. “Do you know something?”
“Yes, I do!” shouted the child.
But Mrs. Champney told him, anyhow.
“Bobbetty,” she said, “there’s a Lucy Stone League for women who don’t want to use their husbands’ names. I believe I’ll start a Jessica Champney League for women who refuse to be called mothers-in-law. There’s really no such thing as a mother-in-law, Bobbetty. It’s just a joke, and a very nasty one. Really and truly, Bobbetty, there are nothing but mothers-in-nature. I think I’ll invent some other word. Why not ‘husbandsmother,’ or ‘wifesmother,’ or—”
Molly appeared before her, evidently in great distress.
“Oh, mother darling!” she cried. “You shouldn’t have done this! You shouldn’t be up so early! You’ll be tired out before you start!”
Mrs. Champney stirred the oatmeal, which was bubbling and spouting like molten lava.
“I don’t believe I will go,” she said. “It seems—such a waste of time. I think I’ll stay home, and help you, and be a grandmother. I’ve tried everything else, and I believe I’d do well at that.”
Molly stared for a moment. Then she ran to the foot of the stairs.
“Robert!” she called, in her ringing, joyous voice. “Robert! Mother’s going to stay home!”
Transcriber’s Notes
- This story appeared in the November 1925 issue of Munsey’s Magazine.
- The cover image was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.