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Page 13
Then they cut each other dead.
* * * * *
Side by side they recline on the couch. Judy, pouting with sleep, is
buffeting her face with her little white boxing-gloves, while Peter stares
fascinated at the fire, quite sure that social functions are not in his
line. "O-o!"
With only three months' experience, Judy has not yet attained complete
mastery of the art of manipulating difficult things like limbs.
Inadvertently, and in excess of zeal to kick higher than any other baby,
she has landed out a beautiful backhander and caught Peter hard in the
tummy. Peter's eyes open wide. Creases appear on his face and widen. A
cavern opens and a roar follows:--
"Ya--o-o!"
"Hullo!" (Judy looks up in amazement, for there is only one noise in the
house like that, and she has the sole rights of it). "Hullo, is that me? I
didn't know I was doing it"--(the roars from Peter continue)--"but I
suppose I am. I must be. Let's have a lot more of this very good noise I am
making--Ya--o-o!"
The duet produces a crescendo astounding to them both, for there has never
been a noise so wonderful as this in all their experience. Then to Judy a
very strange thing happens. She pauses for breath, but the noise goes on.
"This is amazing--how do I do it?..."
She joins in again--and then Peter stops. He too is puzzled vaguely.
However, bother introspection, the concert proceeds, both artists doing
their level best. Now one of them pauses, now the other, and at length
serious doubts begin to creep in. There is something queer afoot--
something....
The matter resolves itself. Turning suddenly they behold each other, both
yelling splendidly. Amazement! Cavern confronts cavern! Face to face they
roar their hardest, demanding the reason for this strange phenomenon, "this
other me who does when I don't."
They pause--their mouths remain agape. Slowly they close and smiles
succeed. Joy! A _reasonable_-sized face at last. What a relief after the
enormous faces, the great mouths, the Cyranese noses of the Big People who
are wont to come and peer. Here at last is a true face, a face that--no,
they both agree not to dwell unduly on the discovery.
Indifferent to each other once again they regard the special objects of
their attention, their hands waving gently in the air, seeking the fairies
that babies' hands are always trying to catch.
Ha! their hands have met.
"Hoo! It's a _reasonable_ hand. It's got proper fingers, not stumps of
bananas."
"Moreover," says Peter politely, "if you care to take advantage of my offer
you will find that it is properly moistened, succulent and suitable to a
baby's taste. You needn't mind; I prepared it myself."
"Goo! Gool-gur!" All is peace and chuckles. Hand-in-hand they survey their
mothers. "_Our_ mothers, yours--mine. Ha, ha--he, he--goo!"
The inner thoughts of the two babies may be hidden from me (I accept the
punishment), but I know--I _know_ what the two mothers are thinking of.
Twenty years hence, a paragraph in _The Times_: "Peter--Judy--" Oh, you
fatuous mothers!
L.
* * * * *
"Public interest remains unabated in the remarkable occurrences at the
poultry-house farm at Brickendon, where spirit rappings in the morse
code have been heard for weeks past.... One question put to the spirit
last night was 'How many people are outside?' And the reply was
'Rorty,' which proved to be correct."--_Liverpool Paper._
And possibly furnishes some clue to the identity of the spirit concerned.
* * * * *
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