“Let ’em please theirselves,” she murmured. “I didn’t say so much as that, but ’tis better to let ’em think so if it do satisfy ’em. There,” she would add, when tormented by some particularly keen twinge of conscience, “’tis to be ’oped as the Lard will forgi’e me. I can’t believe as it ’ull be held agen me, seein’ as it’s for the sake of my own child.”
When poor Susan’s baby boy arrived great astonishment was elicited by the fact that the soft down which covered its little head was of a distinctly ruddy colour.
“Dear, to be sure,” remarked Mrs. Cross, “he can’t take after his father, poor, dear little hinfant. You said he was a black-haired man, didn’t you, Mrs. Frizzell? And Susan’s hair be just so yellow as the corn. I can’t call to mind as there be any red-haired folks in your family, or Frizzell’s either.”
“Very like the poor innocent do take after some o’ Mr. Griggs’ relations,” remarked another woman. “His mother, now—’tis strange how often I’ve a-known the first child be the very image o’ the father’s mother.”
Mrs. Frizzell’s hawk eyes immediately fixed themselves upon the mental picture of Private Grigg’s maternal parent, and she presently remarked, in a somewhat muffled tone, that she fancied she had heard summat about old Mrs. Griggs bein’ a red-haired woman.
“And that makes another of ’em!” she groaned to herself, “I d’ ’low I’ll soon forget what ’tis to speak the truth.”
Returning, after the departure of the visitors, to replace the little flannel-wrapped bundle by its mother’s side, she observed tentatively—
“His hair do seem to be red, Susie.”
“’Ees,” returned poor Susie faintly, “his hair be red—like Jim’s.”
“Ye mid ha’ told me that, I think!” exclaimed Mrs. Frizzell, with irrepressible irritation. “I’ve been a-tellin’ everybody as your husband were a dark-haired man. I had to make out a story now about your mother-in-law having red hair. P’r’aps she has?”