“I will not!”
“I wish you would. I can’t—very well!”
“You’d best!”
Wully stood watching him tie the yellow ears into clusters on the sheltered side of the barn. He was trying with all his might to gather courage to face his mother. He hadn’t felt such a nervous hesitancy since the first time he went into action. He remembered only too well the last time he had really stirred her displeasure. Allen and he had quarreled, and had nursed their anger, in spite of her remonstrances, for two days. He had growled out something to his brother across the supper table, and after that, she had put the little children to bed, and had set her two sons down before the fireplace—it was in the first house they were living then. She had drawn her chair near them, and had proceeded quietly and grimly to flay them with her tongue. She had continued with deliberateness till they were glad to escape half crying to bed. He remembered still how she had begun. It might be natural, she said, for brothers to quarrel. But she believed that it would never again be natural for her sons to quarrel in her presence. And she had been perfectly right about that. What she would say now, upon an occasion like this with her dismaying self-control, he couldn’t even imagine. It would be nothing common, he felt sure.
On the bed which she had just finished spreading with a “drunkard’s path” quilt, they sat down together in a low room of the second story, where three beds full of boys were accustomed to sleep. She kissed him fondly when he came to her, saying it was a lonely house with him away so much. She wondered why they had not been at church. Was Chirstie not well again?
“I have something to tell you, mother,” he stammered.
“I’m listening,” she said encouragingly, her eyes studying him tenderly. How beautiful a head he had! How beautiful a man he was!
“We’re going to have a baby! In December, mother!”
Over her face there spread swiftly a smile of soft amusement. She had always looked that way when one of her children said something especially innocent and lovable.
“You don’t mean December, Wully! Dinna ye ken that? The wee’uns can’na just hurry so!”