Summer, autumn, and winter came and passed. In the spring, Tom Ripon was toddling about; but he had not yet begun to talk, although his mother declared that certain incoherent sounds, which he made, were quite plain and distinct words; but her husband, while willing to allow that they might be perfectly intelligible to her, insisted that--to the male ear--they in no way resembled words.
"But he ought to begin to talk, Robert," his wife urged. "He is sixteen months old, now, and can run about quite well. He really ought to begin to talk."
"He will talk, before long," her husband said, carelessly. "Many children do not talk till they are eighteen months old, some not till they are two years. Besides, you say he does begin, already."
"Yes, Robert, but not quite plainly."
"No, indeed, not plainly at all," her husband laughed. "Don't trouble, my dear, he will talk soon enough; and if he only talks as loud as he roars, sometimes, you will regret the hurry you have been in about it."
"Oh, Robert, how can you talk so? I am sure he does not cry more than other children. Nurse says he is the best child she ever knew."
"Of course she does, my dear; nurses always do. But I don't say he roars more than other children. I only say he roars, and that loudly; so you need not be afraid of there being anything the matter with his tongue, or his lungs.
"What fidgets you young mothers are, to be sure!"
"And what heartless things you young fathers are, to be sure!" his wife retorted, laughing. "Men don't deserve to have children. They do not appreciate them, one bit."
"We appreciate them, in our way, little woman; but it is not a fussy way. We are content with them as they are, and are not in any hurry for them to run, or to walk, or to cut their first teeth. Tom is a fine little chap, and I am very fond of him, in his way--principally, perhaps, because he is your Tom--but I cannot see that he is a prodigy."