The sustaining and cheering effects of Sophronia's fried chicken and waffles probably added to his comfortable enjoyment, which was without limit. He leaned back in his armchair as far as the stiffly ornamented back would admit of his so doing and kept time with his head or his feet, occasionally joining in on a chorus with startling suddenness in an evidently subdued roar, which, though subdued, was still roaring enough, and, despite the excellence of its intention, quite out of tune enough to cause the wax flowers in their wax basket on the table (both done by Jenny at boarding-school) to shake under the glass shade until they tapped against its side with a delicate tinkle.

It was while this was going on that Tom, sitting near a side table, picked up a book and almost unconsciously opened it and read its title.

Having read its title, an expression of interest showed itself on his countenance and he turned over a leaf or so, and as he turned them over dipped into them here and there.

He had the book in his hand when Jenny Rutherford ended her last chorus and came towards him.

"Do you go much by this?" he asked.

She took it from him and glanced at it.

"I brought Tom Scott up on it," she said. "Mother wasn't with me then, and I was such a child I did not know what to do with him."

"Seems to be a good sort of book," said Tom, and he turned over the leaves again.

"It is," she answered, smiling at him. "There are lots of things in it every doctor don't know. It was written by a woman."

"That's the reason, I reckon," said Tom.

He laid the book down and seemed to forget it, but about an hour after when his bedroom candle was brought and he was on the point of retiring for the night, he turned upon the threshold of the sitting-room and spoke to his hostess in the tone of one suddenly recollecting himself.

"Where did you say you got that book?" he inquired, snuffing his candle with his thumb and forefinger.

"I didn't say at all," answered Jenny. "I got it from Brough & Bros., Baltimore."

"Oh, there!" he remarked. "Good-night."

When he reached his room and shut himself in, he set his candlestick on a table and proceeded to draw from his pocket the memorandum-book, also producing the stump of a lead pencil.

Then he made as he stood up before the looking-glass and in the flickering light of the candle, an entry which was as follows: "Advice to Young Mothers, Brough & Bros." He made it with a grave countenance and a business-like manner, and somehow, owing it may be to the small size of the room, its low ceilings and many shadows, or the flickering of the candle, his colossal height and breadth of body and tremendous look of strength had never seemed so marked nor appeared so to overpower the objects surrounding him.

Having completed the entry, he shut up the book and returned it to his pocket with a relieved air.

"If a man ain't a young mother," he remarked, "I guess he can get the good of it, if he gives himself time. And what she wants"--rather hurriedly--"is to get as good a start as if she had a young mother."

And he sat down and pulled off his right boot in so absorbed a frame of mind, that he aroused presently with a start to find that he was holding it as if it had been made of much less tough material and required handling tenderly.

CHAPTER VIII

He was on his way homeward early the next morning, and by noon his horse had climbed the rising ground from which he could look down on the Cross-roads and the post-office baking itself brown in the sun. Catching sight of the latter edifice, he smiled a little and shook the bridle against his steed's warm neck.

"Get along, Jake," he said. "I'm in a little more of a hurry to get home than usual--seems that way anyhow."

The eagerness he felt was a new experience with him and stirred his sense of humour even while it warmed his always easily moved heart. It had been his wont during the last eight years to return from any absence readily but never eagerly or with any touch of excited pleasure. Even at their brightest aspect, with the added glow of fire and warmth and good cheer, and contrast to winter's cold and appetite sharpened by it, the back rooms had always suffered from the disadvantage of offering no prospect of companionship or human interest to him. After the supper had been disposed of and the newspapers read and the pipe smoked, there had only been the fire to watch, and it was quite natural to brood as its blaze died down and its logs changed to a bed of glowing cinders. Under such circumstances it was easy to fall into a habit of brooding too much and thinking of things which had better been forgotten. When there was no fire, it had been lonelier still, and he had found the time hang heavily, on his hands.

"But now," he said, shaking his bridle again, "there she is, and it's quite queer, by thunder, how much she seems to give a man to think of and what will it be when she begins to talk." And his smile ended in a jovial laugh which rather startled Jake, who was not expecting it, and caused him to shy promptly.

She was not asleep when he entered her presence, which was so unusual a state of affairs that he found it a little alarming.

"Hello!" he exclaimed, "there's nothing wrong, I hope."

"Wid dat chile?" chuckled Mornin, delightedly. "I sh'd think not, Mars'

D'Willerby! Dat ar chile's a-thrivin' an' a-comin' 'long jes' like she'd orter. Dar ain't a-gwine to be nothin' wrong wid dat chile."

"That's a good thing," said Tom.

He sat down by the cradle's side and regarded its occupant with an interest as fresh as if she had just appeared for the first time upon his horizon. She had been imbibing a large quantity of milk, and the effect of this nourishment had been to at once compose her spirits and slightly enliven them. So she employed the passing moments by looking at Tom with steadfast and solemn eyes--not, perhaps, very intelligently, but still with a vacant air of interest in him in his character of an object.

"Why," he said, "she's grown; she's grown in thirty-six hours, and she's improved too. Oh, yes! she's coming along nicely."

He touched her very carefully with his large forefinger, a liberty which she did not resent or even notice, unless the fact that she winked both eyes might be regarded as a token of recognition.

"We'll have a box full of things here for her in a couple of weeks," he said. "And then she can start out in life--start out in life."

The last four words seemed to please him; as he repeated them he touched her cheek again, carefully as before.

"And start out fair, too!" he added. "Fair and square--as fair and square as any of them."

He remained a little longer in his seat by the cradle, talking to Mornin, asking her questions and delivering messages laden with advice from little Mrs. Rutherford, which instructions Aunt Mornin plainly regarded as superfluous.

"Now, Mars' D'Willerby," she giggled in amiable scorn, "didn't I raise fo' o' my young Mistes's? Mornin ain't no spring chicken. Dar ain't nuffin 'bout chillun Mornin h'aint heerd. Leeve dis yere chile to Mornin."

"She ain't going to be left to anyone," said Tom, cheerfully, "not to the best woman in Hamlin County. We've got to make up to her for two or three things, and we're going to do it."

Having relieved himself of which sentiment, he went to his place at the table and ate a mighty dinner, during his enjoyment of which meal he did not lose interest in his small silent partner at all, but cast proud glances and jocular sallies at her every few mouthfuls, partaking of her, as it were, with his mountain trout, and finding her add flavour and zest to his hot corn-bread and fried ham.

When he had ended his repast with an astonishing draught of buttermilk, and was ready to go into the store, she had dozed off cosily again and was making the best of her opportunities, so he only paused for a moment to give her a farewell glance.

"Yes," he said, "Felicia--that'll do. When you come to the meaning of it, I don't know of anything else that'd seem to start her out as fair--Felicia!"

And though he said the word in a whisper it seemed to reach her ear in some mysterious way, for she stirred slightly, though not as through any sense of disturbance, opened her eyes upon his big figure and, closing them the next instant, sank into soft sleep again with the faintest dawn or ghost of a baby smile upon her face.

So, nestling under the patchwork quilt and sleeping the hours away in the small ark stranded in the chimney corner, she began life.

Felicia was received by Talbot's Cross-roads with some difference of opinion.

"I'd rather had Mirandy or Lucretia," said Mrs. Doty. "Flishyer ain't nigh as showy as a heap o' other names, 'n' like as not, folks'll be callin' her F'lish. Now thar's Vangerline 'n' Clementine 'n' Everlyne that'd ha' bin showier then Flishyer."

"Tom," put in Mr. Doty, with his usual enjoyment of his friend's weakness and strength, "Tom he'd a notion 'bout it. He said it meant som'n 'bout her a'bein' happy, 'n' he 'lowed it'd kinder give her a start in the right direction. It's jes' like Tom. He's full o' notions when he gits started. I'll back him agin any man in Hamlin fur notions when he gits started. Lord! it's jes' Tom all over!"

Through a disposition to take even names easily and avoid in all cases any unnecessary exertion, Mrs. Doty's pronunciation was adopted at once, which was perhaps the principal reason for a fanciful change being made not long afterwards.

Against "F'lishyer" Tom rebelled loudly and without ceasing, but without effect.