“I can’t think o’ nuthin’ else but Sheby when I look at her,” he remarked several times. “She ’minds me more o’ Sheby then anything else ’n Scripter. Minty’ll jest hev to come ter see her.”
This boldness of imagery struck a chord in the breast of his hearers which responded at once. It was discovered that more than one of them had been reminded in some indefinite manner of the same distinguished personage.
“When she was consider’ble younger then in Solomon’s time,” said one gentleman with much solemnity.
Tom himself was caught by the fancy and when his charge was referred to occasionally in a most friendly spirit as “Sheby thar,” he made no protest against it.
“It’s a thunderation sight better than ‘Flishyer,’” he said, “and if it comes easier to you fellows, I’ve no objection. Sheba ain’t bad. There’s a kind of swing to it, and you can’t get it very far wrong. The other’s a good name spoiled, and it’s a name I’ve a fancy for saving for her. I gave it to her—I’ll save it for her, and it shall be a thing between us two. Call her Sheba if you like.”
So it fell out that Mr. Doty’s Oriental imaginings sealed her fate and gradually, by a natural process, Felicia was abandoned for Sheba, even Tom using it upon all ordinary occasions.
Having in this manner begun life, a day rarely passed in which she did not spend an hour or so in the post-office. Each afternoon during the first few months of her existence Tom brought her forth attired in all her broidery, and it was not long before the day came when he began to cherish the fancy that she knew when the time for her visit was near, and enjoyed it when it came.
“She looks as if she did,” he said to Mornin. “She wouldn’t go to sleep yesterday after I came into the room, and I’ll swear I saw her eyes following me as I walked about; and when I carried her in after she was dressed, she turned her head over her shoulder to look round her and smiled when she had done it and found nothing was missing. Oh! she knows well enough when she gets in there.”
The fancy was a wonderfully pleasant one to him, and when, as time went on, she developed a bright baby habit of noticing all about her, and expressing her pleasure in divers soft little sounds, he was a happier man than he had ever thought to be. His greatest pleasure was the certain knowledge that she had first noticed himself—that her first greeting had been given to him, that her first conscious caress had been his. She was a loving little creature, showing her affection earlier than most children do. Before she could sit upright, she recognised his in-comings and out-goings, and when he took her in his arms to walk to and fro with her, as was his habit at night, she dropped her tiny head upon his shoulders with a soft yielding to his tenderness which never failed to quicken the beatings of his heart.
“There’s something in her face,” he used to say to himself, “something that’s not in every child’s face. It’s a look about her eyes and mouth that seems to tell a man that she understands him—whether his spirits are up or down.”