Mr. Phillips seemed to be very much amused. "Well," he said, still laughing, "Which shall it be, a razor or a jack-knife?"
His wife actually shuddered. "Ben!" she said, with a reproachful face, "how can you say such dreadful things? What if he should grow up and commit suicide?"
"What if I had a boy, and he should grow to be a man, and another man should tread on his toes, and he should knock the other man down, and the other man should die, and they should hang my boy," rattled off Mr. Phillips in anything but a grave tone.
"Little woman, that's what I should call looking into the future, isn't it?"
A knock at the door interrupted them, and Roxie, the tidy little maid of all work, who had been out for an afternoon, appeared to them, talking rapidly.
"If you please, ma'am, I'm a quarter late, and could you please to excuse me; the clock around the corner doesn't go, and Kate she didn't know the time; and Mrs. Meeker said would you please accept her love and these grapes in a basket. She says they're the finest of the lot, and you needn't mind sending of it home, 'cause she'll let little Susie step around after it."
This mixture set Mr. Phillips off into another of his hearty laughs; but when they were alone again, he seized one of the great purple clusters, and flinging himself on the floor in front of the baby, exclaimed:
"I'll tell you what we'll do, little wife: we'll present one of these to the boy, and then you and I will eat it in honor of his birthday, unless, indeed, there may be some bad omen in this, even. You know the juice of the grape may, under certain circumstances, become a dangerous article?"
Mrs. Phillips laughed carelessly as she nestled in the little sewing chair, and prepared to enjoy the grapes. "No," she said, gaily; "grapes are very harmless omens to me. I'm not the least afraid that Baby Benny will ever be a drunkard."