“How do you do it, Grandmother?” Anne Peace would say. And Grandmother would laugh and say, “I don’t, Anne. There isn’t any making about it; they just come.”
She never used to laugh, except with the children, but now she was full of laughter and singing. How could she help it? she would say. Who could help singing with a baby in the house, and such a baby as Faith?
The children were inclined to be jealous at first, all except “Saturday Nelly,” as they called the little lame girl. She simply fell down and worshipped with Grandmother. The others—well, it seemed strange to some of them, especially the boys, to have such a fuss made over a baby. They had babies at home, that looked (they thought in their ignorance) very like this one; but no one ever called them rose-leaf princesses or lily-bell angels. To be sure, they often cried—squalled, the boys called it—and this one never seemed to, just smiled and cooed.
“Why should she cry,” said Grandmother, “when she is well and happy? If she cries, children, it is our fault, and we must be whipped round the garden with bramble whips all over thorns. So dance now, and make her laugh!” Then they all would dance, and Baby Faith would leap in Grandmother’s arms, and crow, and wave her little arms.
“Where did she come from?” asked a little girl.
“Oh, I was just singing about that before you came,” said Grandmother. “Listen now, and you shall hear.
“Down from the sky came
Little White Rose;
How they could spare her
Nobody knows.