A California Girl

by Edward Eldridge

Lucrezia.
Bitterness—am I bitter? strange, oh strange!
How else? My husband dead and childless left.
My thwarted woman—thoughts have inward turned,
And that vain milk like acid in me eats.
Have I not in my thought trained little feet
To venture, and taught little lips to move
Until they shaped the wonder of a word?
I am long practiced. Oh, those children, mine,
Mine, doubly mine; and yet I cannot touch them.
I cannot see them, hear them—Does great God
Expect I shall clasp air and kiss the wind
Forever, and the budding cometh on?
The burgeoning, the cruel flowering;
At night the quickening splash of rain, at dawn
That muffled call of babes how like to birds;
And I amid these sights and sounds must starve
I with so much to give perish of thrift!
Omitted by His casual dew!

Giovanni.
Well, well,
You are spared much; children can wring the heart.

Lucrezia.
Spared! to be spared what was I born to have,
I am a woman, and this very flesh
Demands its natural pangs, its rightful throes,
And I implore with vehemence these pains.
I know that children wound us, and surprise
Even to utter death, till we at last
Turn from a face to flowers; but this my heart
Was ready for these pangs, and had foreseen
Oh! but I grudge the mother her last look
Upon the coffined form—that pang is rich—
Envy the shivering cry when gravel falls
And all these maimed wants and thwarted thoughts,
Eternal yearning, answered by the wind,
Have dried in me belief and love and fear.
I am become a danger and a menace,
A wandering fire, a disappointed force,
A peril—do you hear, Giovanni? Oh,
It is such souls as mine that go to swell
The childless cavern cry of the barren sea,
Or make that human ending to night wind.

In Mrs. Charles Herne, this feeling was not quite as strong as that expressed in the play, but after they had been married two years, she did some quiet thinking in that line. She would sit alone at times, and let her imagination be active in the thought, what delight it would give her if when her husband came in the room where she was, she could take him over to a little crib and turn back the corner of a fancy worked cover and show him such a sweet, wee, little face nestled on the pillow, and what joy it would give her, when her husband came in from his work to put a little one into his arms and see how delighted he would be to take the child, and then see him sit down and hear him use language which belongs to baby talk. Again she thought what pleasure it would give her to start a little toddling form down the pathway to meet her husband, and to see the little one stand still when it met its father, and raise its little arms to be taken up. All these thoughts and many more passed through the mind of Mrs. Herne, for she now knew for a certainty that such joys would be hers, and many a pleasant laugh and joke she and her husband had over the coming of a little tot.

One day a little later there was started in the most sacred room in the house a vibration by the doctor which reached the auditory nerve of the nurse conveying to the brain a most joyous statement, "It is a boy." The nurse carried it to the kitchen, "It is a boy." The Chinaman cook carried it to the Jap chore boy, "It is a boy." The Jap chore boy carried it to the teamsters, "It is a boy." The teamsters carried it to the men on the ditches, "It is a boy." The ditch men carried it to the men in the orchard, "It is a boy." The prune trees took up the glad news and whispered it to the apricot trees, "It is a boy." The apricot trees whispered it to the peach trees, "It is a boy." The peach trees whispered it to all the other fruit trees, "It is a boy."

When Pet, Bell, Blanche and Daisy, with their large udders full of rich lacteal fluid, heard the news, "It is a boy," they gave forth an extra flow of milk that night. When the frisky mules in the barn lot heard the joyful tidings, "It is a boy," they just cut up and threw their hind feet higher than ever. You could not see them for the dust they made. The roosters crowed, "It is a boy," and the hens cackled, "It is a boy." The orioles in the mulberry trees warbled out the song, "It is a boy." The dogs, Dash and Rover, in their play that evening barked at each other, "It is a boy." The cats Tom and Malty purred, "It is a boy." It seemed as if the vibrations in all the buildings and all over the ranch rang out the glad tidings, "It is a boy."

In the evening when all Mr. Herne's men congregated in their fine quarters to have some music, Osborn sat down to the piano and played while all the men sang, that old negro song:

"Give 'em more children, Lord,
Give 'em more children;
Give 'em more children, Lord,
Give 'em more children."

Osborn said to the boys when retiring, "What a feeling of joy the advent of a little boy has brought to us all on the ranch. Mr. and Mrs. Herne have got their wish now, for they both wanted a son."

Barnes said: "What a fine time we will have with the little fellow, when he is old enough to toddle. We will have him over here most of the time."