I. A LITTLE SNOW BIRD.
It was very early Christmas morning, and in the stillness of the dawn,
with the soft snow falling on the housetops, a little child was born in the
Bird household. They had intended to name the baby Lucy, if it were a girl;
but they hadn\'t expected her on Christmas morning, and a real Christmas
baby was not to be lightly named--the whole family agreed in that. They
were consulting about it in the nursery. Mr. Bird said that he had assisted
in naming the three boys, and that he should leave this matter entirely to
Mrs. Bird; Donald wanted the child called "Maud," after a pretty little
curly-haired girl who sat next him in school; Paul chose "Luella," for
Luella was the nurse who had been with him during his whole babyhood,
up to the time of his first trousers, and the name suggested all sorts of
comfortable things. Uncle Jack said that the first girl should always be
named for her mother, no matter how hideous the name happened to be.
Grandma said that she would prefer not to take any part in the discussion,
and everybody suddenly remembered that Mrs. Bird had thought of
naming the baby Lucy, for Grandma herself; and, while it would be
indelicate for her to favor that name, it would be against human nature for
her to suggest any other, under the circumstances. Hugh, the "hitherto
baby," if that is a possible term, sat in one corner and said nothing, but felt,
in some mysterious way, that his nose was out of joint; for there was a
newer baby now, a possibility he had never taken into consideration; and
the "first girl," too, a still higher development of treason, which made him
actually green with jealousy. But it was too profound a subject to be
settled then and there, on the spot; besides, Mama had not been asked, and
everybody felt it rather absurd, after all, to forestall a decree that was
certain to be absolutely wise, just and perfect. The reason that the subject
had been brought up at all so early in the day lay in the fact that Mrs. Bird
never allowed her babies to go over night unnamed. She was a person of
so great decision of character that she would have blushed at such a thing;
she said that to let blessed babies go dangling and dawdling about without
names, for months and months, was enough to ruin them for life.