And we drank to the second one, my Aunt laughing, pleased for all her seeming anger.
But my own heart was pounding under me with the same gripping in my throat that I had felt as I stood on the deck of the Indiana and, looking up, beheld Old Glory above me....
They were lying together by their mother, pink and white little creatures, with heads quite hairless, and blue eyes that were already smiling as plain as could be, twinkling, fun-loving eyes, which said, then, as they have always said, "It's a joke on Daddy we've played!"
Eloise, lying smiling by them, was holding out her arms to me. "I am quite comfortable, and oh, so happy, Jack!" she whispered as I kissed her again and again. "You can't love them both better than you do me! And please don't inspect them too closely, Daddy," she went on, "for you know what old Josh Billings said: 'There is two things no man is ever prepared for—twins!' So we've had to dress up one of them in Aunt Lucretia's old flannel skirt and a crash towel, but she's just as sweet as the other one and so like her own, sweet daddy!"
"That Jack Daniel whiskey, sweetheart," I said, choking up sillily,—"but I am so thankful, now that you are safe—and—and—I was so proud and happy that I drank to each of their healths, till, Eloise, really are you sure, but I'll swear I am seeing four little heads here under the cover—and if there are—of course, if it is, it's all right with me—and—and—Eloise, aren't they holding hands already?"
Eloise broke out into her old laugh. "Of course they are," she cried happily, "and there aren't but two of them, Jack; honest, just two—on my word of honor, none of them have got away; but that's the funniest part of it all—they clasped hands as soon as they were placed together—just two sweet for anything! Such devotion to each other! Look! And oh, Jack, you must never, never show any partiality, or love one more than the other, or either of them more than me. And don't take any more of Aunt Lucretia's Jack Daniel, for it makes me afraid to have you see double this way! Don't now, for if you took two more of those old drinks you might see triplets—oh,—the thought of it! Now kiss us all goodnight; we want to sleep. And here—your hands, Jack, and our little prayer."
CHAPTER II
HOW AUNT LUCRETIA RAN AWAY
There never was a fall like Aunt Lucretia's when she did fall in love. It is historic at The Home Stretch to this day, and the record is as Aunt Lucretia wrote it to me after she had married Dr. Gottlieb.
"Ran away!" exclaimed Eloise, after she had read the letter; "and everybody on the place has been trying to marry them off to each other for twenty years. But of course Aunt Lucretia had to do something different!"