They even said "awful" in those far-back days, they truly did.
Father Underhill laughed and squeezed the little girl with a fondness she understood very well.
Just then a voice called rather sharply: "'Milyer! 'Milyer!" and he sat the little girl down on the stool as carefully as if she had been china. He put another kiss in the little dent, and she gave him a tender smile.
His whole name was Vermilye Fowler Underhill. Everybody called him Familiar, but Mrs. Underhill shortened it to 'Milyer.
The little girl's name was Hannah Ann. The school children called her Han and Hanny. One grandmother always said Hanneran. But being the youngest, the most natural name seemed "little girl."
There were three sons to lead off, Stephen Decatur, Joseph Bennett, and John Fowler. Then a daughter was most welcome, and she was called Margaret Hunter after her mother, and shortened to Peggy. They used nicknames and diminutives, if they were not as fanciful as ours.
After Margaret came George Horton, Benny Franklin, and James Odell. The poor mother gave a sigh of disappointment, she had so longed for another girl. When Jim had outgrown babyhood altogether and was nearly five, the desired blessing came.
There was a great discussion about her name. Grandmother Hunter had married a second time and was a Van Kortlandt now. She had named her only daughter after her mother and was a bit offended that Margaret was not named for her. Now she came with a fairy god-mother's insistence, and declared she would put a hundred dollars in the bank at once, and remember the child in her will, besides giving her the old Hunter tablespoons made in London more than a hundred years ago, with the crown mark on them.
Grandmother Underhill's name was Ann. She lived with her eldest son at White Plains, who had fallen heir to his grandfather's farm. When a widow she had gone back to her girlhood's home and taken care of her old father. David, her eldest son, had come to work the farm. She had a "wing" in the house, but she never lived by herself, for her son and the grandchildren adored her.
Now she said to the baby's mother: "You put in Ann for a middle name and I'll give her a hundred dollars as well, and my string of gold beads that came from Paris. And I'll make her a nice down bed and pillows."