“Well,” she insisted—and she took “By-an’-by’s” face between her palms and drew it close to search his eyes—“is it nex’ year?”
“Maybe.”
She touched the tip of her white little nose to the sunburned tip of his. “But is it?” she persisted.
“Uh-huh,” said “By-an’-by” Brown, recklessly, quite overcome, committing himself beyond redemption; “nex’ year.”
And “By-an’-by’s” baby remembered....
Next year began, of course, with the first day of January. And a day with wind and snow it was! Through the interval of three months preceding, Brown had observed the approach of this veritable by-an’-by with rising alarm. And on New Year’s Day, why, there it was: by-an’-by come at last! “By-an’-by” Brown, though twenty-two, was frightened. No wonder! Hitherto his life had not been perturbed by insoluble bewilderments. But how to produce Long Bill Tweak from the mist into which he had vanished at Back Yard Bight of the Labrador seven years ago? It was beyond him. Who could call Bill Tweak from seven years of time and the very waste places of space? Not “By-an’-by” Brown, who could only ponder and sigh and scratch his curly head. And here was the maid, used to saying, as maids of seven will, But you told me so! and, You promised! So “By-an’-by” Brown was downcast as never before; but before the day was spent he conceived that the unforeseen might yet fortuitously issue in the salvation of himself and the baby.
“Maybe,” thought he—“by-an’-by!”
As January progressed the maid grew more eager and still more confident. He promised, thinks she; also, He told me so. There were times, as the terrified Brown observed, when this eagerness so possessed the child that she trembled in a fashion to make him shiver. She would start from her chair by the stove when a knock came late o’ windy nights on the kitchen door; she would stare up the frozen harbor to the Tickle by day—peep through the curtains, interrupt her housewifely duties to keep watch at the window.
“Anyhow, he will come,” says she, quite confidently, “by-an’-by.”