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Poppy's Presents

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<h2>CHAPTER VIII. JACKY AND JEMMY.</h2> <div class="figleft"><ANTIMG src="images/chaptern.png" width-obs="69" height-obs="100" alt="N" /></div> ow, my dear,' said grandmother, when she had rested for a minute or two, 'where's my lad's wife? Your mother, my lass; where is she?' 'Oh, she's in bed, grandmother!' said Poppy. 'She's very ill, is my mother.' 'I'll go up and see her,' said the old woman. 'To think that my John Henry has been a married man these ten years, and I've never seen his wife!' But when she did see John Henry's wife, grandmother sat down and sobbed like a child. She was so white, so thin, so worn, that the kind old woman's heart was filled with love and with shame—love for her poor suffering daughter-in-law, shame that her son,[Pg 72] the lad of whom she had been so proud, should have left her when she needed him so much. How long grandmother would have cried it is impossible to say, had not a dismal wail come from one side of the bed, followed almost immediately by another dismal wail from the other side of the bed. It was Enoch and Elijah, who had fallen asleep for a few minutes whilst Poppy was downstairs, but who had waked up at the sound of a strange voice. Grandmother sprang from her seat as soon as she heard them cry. She had not seen the babies before, for they were covered by the bed-clothes. She held them one in each arm, and kissed them again and again. 'Oh, my bonny, bonny bairns!' she said; 'my own little darling lambs! To think that God Almighty has sent you back again! Why, I'm like Job, my lass; I lost them five-and-forty years ago;—ay, but it seems only five-and-forty days. Oh! my own beautiful little lads. I kicked sore against losing[Pg 73] them, I did indeed, my lass, poor silly fool that I was! and now here's God given me them back again. I'm a regular old Job now, ain't I? Not that I was patient, like him; he was a sight better than me—a sight better. Oh, you dear things, won't your grandmother love you!' 'Had you twins of your own, grandmother?' asked her daughter-in-law. 'Ay, my dear, that I had, and little lads, too—the finest children you ever saw; why, it was the talk of the country-side, my dear, what beautiful bairns they was.' 'And how old were they when you lost them, grandmother?' 'Why, my dear,' said the old woman, 'my child was ten months and one week old, and his child was ten months and three weeks old—just a fortnight's difference, my dear.' 'I thought you said they were both yours, grandmother,' said Poppy. 'Ay, my darling, so they was; but that was how we got to talk of them. You see, me and my master had been married nigh on[Pg 74] five years, and never had no childer (we lived up at the farm at that time), and then these babies came, and I think our heads were fairly turned by them—he was well-nigh crazed, he was indeed, my dear. "Sally," he says, when he came in to look at them, "you pick one and I'll have the other—half-and-half, that's fair share," he says. "Now, Sally, you choose first." '"Well," says I, "I'll have the ginger-haired one; it's most like me." I used to have ginger hair, my dear; you wouldn't believe it, for it's all turned white now, but I had, just like Poppy there, beautiful ginger hair. Some folks don't like the colour, my dear, but your grandfather used to like it. Why, he said when he was courting me that my hair was the colour of marigolds, and they was always his favourite flowers; he had, 'em in his own little garden when he was a tiny lad, he said. 'Well, I picked the one with ginger hair, and called it my child, and he picked the black-haired one, which was the very picture[Pg 75] of him—why, he had a head like a crow's back, my dear. And so we each had a baby of our own, and would you believe it, my lass, he took that care of it, you'd have thought he was an old nurse—you would indeed. He washed it and he dressed it,—ay, but I did laugh the first time,—and he gave it the bottle, and he got a little girl from the village to come and mind it when he was out, and in the evening we sat one on each side of the fire, he with his child, and I with mine; and then at night, when we went to bed, his bairn slept in his arms, and my bairn slept in mine. Well then we had them christened, and his was Jacky and mine was Jemmy, and he was proud of his child that day—as proud as Punch; he was indeed, my dear. He carried him all the way—Oh, dear! oh, dear! what have I done!' said the old woman, as she turned to the bed and saw Poppy's mother in tears. 'Why, you're crying, my dear; I oughtn't to have told you. What a silly old goose I[Pg 76] am! I ought to have remembered that lad of mine, and how he's gone and left you, instead of giving a hand with his own babies, as my master did. Dear me, dear me, whatever was I thinking of?' 'Oh, granny,' said her daughter-in-law, 'do tell me about them; I like to hear—I do indeed; please go on.' 'Well, my dear, if you will have it so, I'll go on. They grew up beautiful babies, they did indeed, and didn't folks admire them! There's lots of people drives through our village when it's the season at Scarborough; they takes carriages, my dear, and they come driving out with lads in red jackets riding on them poor tired horses—"post-williams," I think they call them. I'm telling you no lie, my dear, when I tell you them little lads has brought in scores of threepenny bits that the ladies have thrown them from their carriages, when the girl took them out by the lodge gate; they was so taken with the pretty dears, they was. 'Well, all went on well, my lass, till the[Pg 77] teeth began to come,—oh, them teeth, what a nuisance they are! I've lost mine, my dear, all but two, and I'm sure it's a good job to have done with 'em—they're nothing but bother, always aching and breaking and worrying you. Well, the teething went very hard with the babies; his child was the worst, though, and one day little Jacky had a convulsion fit, and didn't my master send off for the doctor in a hurry; and all that night he sat up watching his bairn, for fear it should have another fit. Doctor came once or twice after that, for the little lad kept poorly, though the fits did not come back. '"Ay, doctor," I says one day, when he had little Jack in his arms, and was saying what a pretty boy he was—"Ay, doctor," I says, "but look at my child," and I held up little Jemmy. "He's the beauty now, isn't he, doctor?" '"You're very fond of that boy, aren't you?" says doctor. '"Fond of him! Why, doctor," I says, "I love him till I often think I could go[Pg 78] bare-foot all my life and live on bread and water if it would do him a bit of good." '"Take care you don't love him too much," says doctor, looking quite grave; "folks mustn't make idols even of their own bairns. Don't be offended, missis," he says, "but it doesn't do to set your heart too much on anything, not even on your own little lad: you might lose him, you know." 'Well, I was huffy with doctor after that; I was a bit put out, and I says, "Well, doctor, if I thought I was going to lose him I would love him a hundred times better than ever." So, my dear, doctor shook his head at me and went away, and (would you believe it!) only five hours after I had to send for him all in a hurry to come to my child. He'd taken a fit like Jacky had; but oh! my dear, he didn't come out of it as Jacky did; it was a sore, sore fit, and before doctor could get to him—and he ran all the way from the village—my bonny bairn was gone.' 'Oh, grandmother, you would feel that,' said Poppy's mother. [Pg 79]'Yes, my dear, I did indeed; and when bedtime came, and he had his child laid aside him, and my child was laid dead in the best room downstairs, I felt as if my heart would break. He wanted me to take his child, but little Jacky was used to father, and wouldn't come to me, and, my dear, I cried myself to sleep.' 'And how much longer did the other baby live, grandmother?' said Poppy. 'Only fifteen days, my dear, and we buried 'em both in one little grave,—I often go to look at it now;—and when we put his child in, and I saw my child's little coffin at the bottom of the grave, my dear, I wished I could go in too. 'I was very hard and rebellious, ay, I was, I see it all now,' said grandmother, wiping her eyes. 'But just to think of God giving 'em back to me after five-and-forty years! Why, it's wonderful,' said the old woman in a cheerful voice. '"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits." That's the verse for me, my dear, now, isn't it?' [Pg 80]And grandmother took up first Enoch and then Elijah, and kissed them and hugged them as lovingly as ever she had kissed her own little babies. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 81] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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