Vesty laughed and shook her head at me, but I had the broom and was hobbling about at work with it, pleased to find that Uncle Benny had rather neglected this humble office for the more important one of minding the baby.
He next set me to washing the dishes and turning the churn; he would not trust me with the child, and wisely. That he held in his own strong arms, but he sat down beside me after my work was done and gently commiserated me.
"Nature has not done so much for you as she has for some, you know," he said.
"No, indeed," I murmured.
At that he took off his blue necktie and held it toward me, with a tear of pity in his eye.
I took it and tied it simply around my neck above the collar.
"It improves you—some," he said, but his look only too plainly indicated that there was still much to be desired.
We were sitting thus on the doorstep, Uncle Benny with the baby, and I peeling the potatoes, with his blue ribbon tied around my neck, when I heard a half-familiar little scream and laugh, and, looking up, beheld a fashionable company.
"We hailed Gurdon, off Reef Island, and he said we might come and see the son and heir—hurrah!"
Notely spoke in his gay voice, but the look he gave Vesty's child—Vesty's sweet self in that form—leaped with a passionate pain.