"If Eva were a boy, now," he sighed, "I could soon have some one to help me in the shop. But—nothing but girls!"
"Eva is a treasure!" Mrs. Willian answered stoutly. "I wouldn't exchange her for the best boy in the world."
"But girls are so expensive," the father objected, "and they can't earn any thing; that is, mine can't. I don't want a daughter of mine to leave my house till she marries."
"And there is no need of their doing any thing, my dear," the mother replied cheerfully. "We own our house, and your business is very good. Then, when the mortgages are paid off on your building, the rent of the upper flats will make us quite independent. In three or four years we shall be out of the wood, all our pinching and toiling over."
Mrs. Willian was a thrifty, clear-headed, energetic woman; but, though she would not have owned it, she herself found the prospect appalling. As she sat there after her husband left her, she glanced out the chamber window and saw Dinah, the one servant of the house, putting out the washing, her accusing face looming darkly over the interminable lines of wet dry-goods. Oh! the strings to tie, the buttons to button, the hooks to hook! And here on her knees lay another candidate for such services, an unconscious little affliction of two weeks old! Oh! the rents and rips to mend, the darnings and makings over, the little faces to wash and locks to comb, the faults to chide, the teasings to bear, the questions to answer! She had just got a glimpse through the door of Eva with her hair in a snarl, and of Helen with soiled stockings on; she knew that Frances had tumbled downstairs and set her nose bleeding; she could hear Anne crying pathetically for mother to come and rock her to sleep, and she was almost sure that every thing was at sixes and sevens in the kitchen.
"But I will not lose my courage!" she exclaimed vehemently, and, in proof that she would not, burst into hysterical weeping.
The fifth girl grew apace, and after her came Josephine, and after Josephine came Jane.
"Mr. Willian is among the blessed," said the priest when this seventh daughter was carried to him for baptism. "Verily, he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate."
Others besides the priest had their jest concerning this regiment of girls. Tradesmen smiled when purchases were made for them, people laughed and counted when invitations were to be sent to them, neighbors went to their windows to see the Willian procession start for church. They became proverbial, especially with their father.
But as years passed, words of praise began to drop in among the jests. Mothers marvelled to see how early the Willian girls learned to sew and mend, how deftly they could use the broom and duster, what womanly ways the elder had toward the younger. These mothers reproachfully told their shiftless daughters what a dignified and careful maiden Miss Eva was, and how even Anne could put a room to rights after the smaller fry, and sing Jenny to sleep with a voice like a bobolink's. For all these children took to singing as naturally as birds do, and warbled before they could speak.