"Mercy!" whispered Peace in awed amazement. "Does she really want me to name her babies?"
"Shouldn't you like to?"
"O, so much! But most mothers would thank other folks to let them do their own naming. Or, if the mothers didn't mind, prob'ly the children themselves would kick when they grew up. There was our family, for one. Grandpa Greenfield named the most of us, and see what a job he made of it. He went to the Bible for us, too."
The minister's lips twitched, but Peace was so very serious that he dared not laugh; so, after an apologetic cough behind his hand, he suggested politely, "Then suppose we arrange it this way,—if the first names you select don't suit, we will tell you so, and you can pick out some others."
"O, don't I have to think them up today? I s'posed you would want 'em right away. Grandpa named us the first time he looked at us, Gail says."
"Well, we needn't be in such a big hurry as that, girlie. It took us a month to decide what we should call our boy, and if you want that long a time, take it."
"I don't think I shall," she replied, viewing her unusual and unexpected privilege with serious eyes. "Not being a mother or a father, I don't expect it will take me more'n a few days to find very pretty names." Then, as if struck by an important thought, she asked, "But how will you Christian them, s'posing I don't hit on some likely names before a month is up?"
"Christian them!"
"Yes. Like they did Tommy Finnegan's baby brother. He was only seven days old, but he had to have a name before the priest could Christian him."