Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/47

Rh THE CHRISTENING. , I won't forgive our parson — not down to my dyin' day. He'd orter waited a minnit; that's what I'll allers say; But to christen my boy, my baby, with such an orful name! Why, where's the use o' talkin'? I tell you he was to blame.

You see, it happened in this way: There was father, an' Uncle Si, An' mother, an' each one wantin' a finger in the pie,— Euch with a name for baby, as ef I hadn't no voice; But the more they talked an' argied, the more I stuck to my choice.

"Semanthy"—this was father—"you'd best take pattern by mother, For she named thirteen children, 'thout any such fuss or bother: As soon as she diskivered that family names was too few, Why, she just fell back on the Bible, as perfessers air bound to do."

"Semanthy"—this was Reuben—"most any one else could see, That, bein' as I'm his father, he orter be named for me. You say my name's old-fashioned; well, I'm old-fashioned too: Yet 'twarn't so long ago, nuther, that both of us suited you."

Then there was Uncle Silas: "Semanthy, I tell ye what: Just name him Silas. I'll give him that hundred-acre lot. I'll make out the deed to-morrer ; an' then, when I've gone to my rest, There'll be a trifle o' money to help him feather his nest."

But the worst of all was mother. She says, so meek an’ mild,— "I'd love to call him Jotham, after my oldest child; He died on his second birthday. The others are grown-up men, But Jotham is still my baby: he has never grown since then. His hair was soft and curlin', eyes blue as blue could be, An' this boy of yours, Semanthy, jest brings him back to me."