Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery Read Free Book Online Page A

few minutes ago she had been thinking of the baby as an interloper, only to be tolerated for mother’s sake. But now it was one of the family and it seemed as if it had always been at Silver Bush. No matter how it had come, from stork or black bag or parsley bed, it was there and it was theirs.

CHAPTER 5
“What’s in a Name?”
    The new baby at Silver Bush did not get its name until three weeks later when mother was able to come downstairs and the nurse had gone home, much to Judy’s satisfaction. She approved of Miss Martin as little as Miss Martin approved of her.
    â€œOh, oh, legs and lipstick!” she would say contemptuously, when Miss Martin doffed her regalia and went out to take the air. Which was unjust to Miss Martin, who had no more legs than other women of the fashion and used her lipstick very discreetly. Judy watched her down the lane with a malevolent eye.
    â€œOh, oh, but I’d like to be putting a tin ear on that one. Wanting to call the wee treasure Greta! Oh, oh, Greta ! And her with a grandfather that died and come back to life, that he did!”
    â€œDid he really, Judy Plum?”
    â€œHe did that. Old Jimmy Martin was dead as a doornail for two days. The doctors said it. Thin he come back to life…just to spite his family I’m telling ye. But, as ye might ixpect, he was niver the same agin. His relations were rale ashamed av him. Miss Martin naden’t be holding that rid head av hers so high.”
    â€œBut why, Judy?” asked Sid. “Why were they ashamed of him?”
    â€œOh, oh, whin ye’re dead it’s only dacent to stay dead,” retorted Judy. “Ye’d think she’d remimber that whin she was trying to boss folks who looked after babies afore she was born or thought av, the plum-faced thing! But she’s gone now, good riddance, and we won’t have her stravaging about the house with a puss on her mouth inny more. Too minny bushels for a small canoe…it do be that that’s the trouble wid her .”
    â€œShe can’t help her grandfather, Judy,” said Pat.
    â€œOh, oh, I’m not saying she could, me jewel. We none of us can hilp our ancistors. Wasn’t me own grandmother something av a witch? But it’s sure we’ve all got some and it ought to kape us humble.”
    Pat was glad Miss Martin was gone, not because she didn’t like her but because she knew she would be able to hold the baby oftener now. Pat adored the baby. How in the world had Silver Bush ever got on without her? Silver Bush without the baby was quite unthinkable to Pat now. When Uncle Tom asked her gravely if they had decided yet whether to keep or drown the baby she was horrified and alarmed.
    â€œSure, me jewel, he was only tazing ye,” comforted Judy, with her great, broad, jolly laugh. “’Tis just an ould bachelor’s idea av a joke.”
    They had put off naming the baby until Miss Martin had gone, because nobody really wanted to call the baby Greta but didn’t want to hurt her feelings. The very afternoon she left they attended to the matter…or tried to.
    But it was no easy thing to pick a name. Mother wanted to call it Doris after her own mother and father wanted Rachel after his mother. Winnie, who was romantic, wanted Elaine, and Joe thought Dulcie would be nice. Pat had secretly called it Miranda for a week and Sidney thought such a blue-eyed baby ought to be named Violet. Aunt Hazel thought Kathleen just the name for it, and Judy, who must have her say with the rest, thought Emmerillus was a rale classy name. The Silver Bush people thought Judy must mean Amaryllis but were never sure of it.
    In the end father suggested that each of them plant a named seed in the garden and see whose came up first. That person should have the privilege of naming the baby.
    â€œIf we find more than one up at once the winners must plant over again,” he said.
    This was a sporting chance and the