Afterwards we did start to go along the path. We went a little way. Then I did go aside. I went aside to the house of Elsie, to see the new baby. It was sleeping in its cradle that the husband of Elsie made out of a box. He put rockers on the box and Elsie put soft feels in it. After the box did have rockers on it and soft feels in it, they did take the baby girl from the cradle and lay her in the bed. And now everyday, except the day she does go with her mother Elsie to visit her grandma, the baby does lay in the cradle. And Elsie does rock the cradle with her foot while she sews. She sings and sings. She sings “Rock-a-by baby in the tree-top; when the wind blows, the cradle will rock.” And while she does sing, I have knowings that the little song-notes do dance about the cradle of the baby.
To-day I did stay quite a time long to look upon the face of the baby. I so do love babies. Every night I pray for the twins I want when I grow up. Some nights I pray that they may have blue eyes and golden hair. Other nights I pray for them to have brown eyes and brown hair. Sadie McKibben tells me I better stop changing my prayers about so much, or the angels may bring to me when I grow up twins with streaked hair and variegated eyes.
After I did look upon the little baby at the house of Elsie, I did have thinks to go to the house of Sadie McKibben. I so did go. As I did go along, I did have wonders if mothers can see the little song-notes that dance about their babies’ cradles when they sing lullaby songs to them. I went on across the field. When I was come to a stump by the fence corner, I stopped. I heard a criard noise. It came from near the stump. I think it was a mulot. I looked looks about. I had not seeing of it. I went on. I saw a blue jay near by the old log where I did hide nineteen acorn children on a gray day in September. He was looking looks about. I watched him make a flyaway with one of my acorns. I did count what was left. There was only a few.
I went on. When I was come to the house of Sadie McKibben, she was washing clothes. On washing days Sadie McKibben does look a bit different from her appears on other days. On wash-days along in the afternoon her hair does hang in strings about her face. Her dress does have crinkles all adown it. And her nice blue gingham apron with cross stitches on it does have rumples and soapy smells. I do know so for I do smell those soapy smells when I cuddle close to her apron on wash-days.
To-day I did stay by the side of Sadie McKibben for a little time. Then I did go to weed her onions for her. They did have looks like they did have needs for more room to grow in. And while I did weed her onions, I did see many beautiful things about. There is so much to see near about and a little way off, and there is so much to hear. And most all the time I am seeing, I am hearing, and I do have such glad feels.
To-day we did christen Solomon Grundy. He was borned a week ago yesterday on Monday. That’s why we did name him Solomon Grundy. And this being Tuesday we did christen him, for in the rhyme, the grandpa does sing to the children about Solomon Grundy being christened on Tuesday. Yesterday I made him a christening robe out of a new dish-towel that was flapping in the wind. But the aunt had no appreciation of the great need of a christening robe for Solomon Grundy. And my ears were slapped until I thought my head would pop open, but it did n’t. It just ached. Last night when I went to bed I prayed for the ache [to] go away. This morning when I woke up it had gone out the window. I did feel good feels from my nightcap to my toes. I thought about the christening, and early on this morning, before I yet did eat my breakfast, I went out the window that the ache went out in the night. I went from the window to the pig-pen.
I climbed into the pig-pen. I crawled on my hands and knees back under the shed where he and his sisters five and his little brother were all having breakfast from their mother. I gently did pull away by his hind-legs, from among all those dear baby pigs, he who had the most curl in his tail. I took him to the pump and pumped water on him to get every speck of dirt off. He squealed because the water was cold. So I took some of the warm water the mamma was going to wash the milk-pans in and I did give him a warm bath in the wash-pan. Then he was the pinkiest white pig you ever saw. I took the baby’s talcum-powder can and I shook it lots of times all over him. When the powder sprinkled in his eyes, he did object with a regular baby-pig squeal. And I climbed right out the bedroom window with him, because the mamma heard his squeal and she was coming fast. I did go to the barn in a hurry, for in the barn yesterday I did hide the christening robe. When I reached the top of the hay I stopped to put it on Solomon Grundy. Then we proceeded to the cathedral.
A little ways we did go, and I remembered how on the borning day of him I did ask that grand fir tree, Good King Edward I, to be his god-father. And that smaller fir tree growing by his side—the lovely Queen Eleanor of Castile—I did ask to be his godmother. We went aside from the path that leads unto the cathedral. We went another way. We went adown the lane to where dwell Good King Edward I and the lovely Queen Eleanor. And there beside them Solomon Grundy was christened. They who were present at the christening were these—Saint Louis and Charlemagne and Hugh Capet and King Alfred and Theodore Roosevelt and William Wordsworth and Homer and Cicero and Brave Horatius and Isaiah. These last two did arrive in a hurry in the midst of the service. Being dogs with understanding souls, they did realize the sacredness of the occasion and they stood silent near Charlemagne.