CHAPTER XIV.
SIR CHRISTOPHER ENJOYS THE CHASE.
Five days later, Priscilla Alden sat in the gloaming of the wild March day before a fire so cheerful as to be truly perilous to the chimney of sticks laid up with mud attached like an elongated hornet’s nest to the outside of the house. Upon her knees lay little Sally, future wife of Alexander Standish, but just now a child of two years old, with a bad cold upon her lungs and a tendency to croup, or, as her mother called it, quinsy; and it was by way of an ounce of prevention that Priscilla was roasting the little thing before this huge fire, and at the same time diligently rubbing her chest and throat with goose grease. The child, hardly knowing whether to be amused or annoyed at the process, kicked and struggled, uttering little cries varying from crowing laughter to indignant squeals, while the mother made all the play she could of the affair, now tickling the small creature in her fat neck, now answering her cries with counter-cries and merry Boo! Boo! Boo! and anon,—
“See, Sally! See the pretty fire! Shall mother throw Sally in and burn her all up?” rubbing away meantime, until the child’s white skin glowed like a rose and glistened like a mirror.
“She looks like the suckling pig you roasted last Thanksgiving, mother,” remarked John junior, who stood drying his feet before the unusual fire, preparatory to rushing out and wetting them again.
“Why so she is, mother’s darling little piggie-wiggie, mother’s little suckling piggie-wiggie, and she shall be all nicely basted and set down to roast for daddy’s supper, so she shall! Now, now, now! One more little rub to drive the basting well in! Now, now, now, mammy’s little Sally! Phew! who’s at the door, Johnny? Run and shut it before the air reaches little sister!”
“It’s only Betty,” remarked John with brotherly indifference, but still running to help his sister close the door against the playful south wind which insisted upon coming in along with his playmate, who laughed aloud as she closed the door in his face, set her back against it, and pulled off her hood to rearrange the soft red hair blown all over her face. Glancing toward her, the mother smiled with involuntary delight in her child’s beauty; and truly Betty was very pretty, very pretty indeed, having selected her features and coloring from her father’s pure Saxon type and her mother’s Latin traits, with rare eclecticism; for her deep and rich red hair was far more beautiful than John’s blond locks or Priscilla’s dusky tresses, and her eyes, halting between his blue orbs and her dark ones, had resulted in that sparkling brown we all love to watch in the woodland brook stealing out from the roots of trees. Her complexion, neither pale nor dark, was at once glowing and delicate, the white values bordering upon cream rather than snow, and the reds suggesting carnations rather than roses. As for the mouth, it was too young yet to have got its expression, but the lines were noble and clear, sweet and pure, promising much for their maturity. A winsome little lassie, and so her mother knew, but was far too wise to show it. In fact, her tone was almost reproving as she said,—
“Why, Betty! How you are blown about! You are growing too big a girl to play the hoiden.”
“Goody Billington calls me a tear-coat,” replied the child, laughing in a blithe, fearless voice very pleasant to hear.