“No,” said Artie, “’tisn’t quite like that, Leigh. For I can remember what we had for dinner on my birthday, and that was very long ago, before last winter, much better than what we had for dinner one day last week.”
“I can tell you how that is,” said nurse, “what you had for dinner on your birthday made a mark on your mind because it was your birthday. Everything makes marks on our minds, I suppose, but some go deeper than others. That’s how it’s always seemed to me about remembering and forgetting. And if there’s any name I want to remember very much I say it out loud to myself two or three times, and that seems to press it into my mind. Dear, dear, how well I remember doing that way at school when I was a little girl. There was the kings and queens, do what I would, I couldn’t remember how their names came, till I got that way of saying two or three together, like ‘William and Mary, Anne, George the First,’ over and over.”
The children listened with great interest to nurse’s recollections, the boys especially, that is to say; the talk was rather too difficult for Mary to understand. But her face looked very grave; she seemed to be listening to what nurse said, and yet thinking of something behind it. All at once her eyes grew bright and a smile broke out like a ray of sunshine.
“I ’amember,” she said joyfully. “Nursie said her couldn’t ’amember names. It was names papa said. He said us was to fink of a name for baby.”
“Oh, is that what you’ve been fussing about?” said Leigh. “I could have told you that long ago. I’ve fixed what I want her to be called. I’ve thought of a very pretty name.”
Mary looked rather sorry.
“I can’t fink of any names,” she said; “I can only fink of ‘Mary.’ Can’t her be called ‘Mary,’ ’cos it’s my birfday?”
Leigh and Artie both began to laugh.
“What a silly girl you are,” said Leigh; “how could you have two people in one family with the same name? Whenever we called ‘Mary,’ you’d never know if it was you or the baby we meant.”
“You could say ‘baby Mary,’” said Mary, who did not like to be called a silly girl.