more than "Oh, Tom!"--and let me hold her, with her forehead pressed
close against me. And the others kept very quiet, and everything was
quiet about us, until she jumped back on a sudden and found all her
speech in a flood.

"Tom," she said, "you're crushin' him, you great, awkward man!" And
she turned back the shawl and snatched the handkerchief off the
baby's face--a queer-looking face it was, too. "Be all babies as
queer as that?" thought I. Lucky I didn't say it, though.
"There, my blessed, my handsome! Look, my tender! Eh, Tom, but he
kicks my side all to bruises; my merryun, my giant! Look up at your
father, and you his very image!" That was pretty stiff. "I
declare," she says, "he's lookin' about an' takin' stock of
everything"--and that was pretty stiff, too. "So like a man; all for
the sea and the boats! Tom, dear, father will tell you that all the
way on the water he was as good as gold; and, on shore before that,
kicking and fisting--all for the sea and the boats; the man of him!
Hold him, dear, but be careful! A Sunday's child, too--

'Sunday's child is full of grace . . .'

And--the awkward you are! Here, give him back to me: but feel how
far down in his clothes the feet of him reach. Extraordinar'!
Aun' Hessy mounted a chair and climbed 'pon the chest o' drawers with
him, before takin' him downstairs; so that he'll go up in the world,
an' not down."

"If he wants to try both," said I, "he'd best follow his father and
grandfathers, and live 'pon a lightship."