Candlemas Bay by Ruth Moore

Author:Ruth Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Islandport Press
Published: 2022-02-18T19:41:02+00:00

itting on the screened back porch, from which the glass windows had been removed for the summer, Evelyn sang to Clay, her plain voice accompanied by the soft and various creaks of her wicker rocking chair.

“Fly under, fly over, my dimity-doo,

My little gray feather, my darling, my dear.”

The old lullaby had a sleepy swing, and Evelyn herself was more than half asleep from it; she only wished Clay were. But Clay kept rolling his head in an uncomfortable way on her bosom, bouncing his fat little buttocks up and down in her hard lap. Finally he sat up straight, looked into her face, and said unmistakably, “Nuts!”

From the wicker chair’s twin, a few feet down the porch, Myrabel Evans said, “My, that baby’s old for his age!”

Myrabel was resting with her crochet work, now that the dishes from the boarders’ dinner were cleared away and there would be an hour or so before she and Jen had to think about supper. Her feet in lavender crocheted bedroom slippers expanded in comfort on the grass porch­rug; her ample figure, clad in a Nile green housecoat, filled the chair with solid immobility. No one, seeing Myrabel relaxed, would have believed the way she could move around a kitchen.

“He picks it up from the older boys,” Evelyn said. “Come on, Clay, put your head down.”

But Clay shrugged her off. He stiffened his body so that he slid through her hands to the floor. He padded sleepily across to Myrabel, climbed up into her lap, and laid his head against her vast, billowing amplitude, where he relaxed with a long sigh.

Myrabel stared.

“Well, shan’t you die!” she said. “Trust a male to find a soft spot.”

Evelyn said, ruefully, “I’m not much of a pillow.”

“Well, you are thin, dear,” Myrabel said, comfortably. “But you’ve got ample for all intents and purposes. I will say, though, that you are entering into competition when it comes to me.”

She put down her crochet work and began rocking Clay.

“Oh, dear,” Evelyn said. “That’s my job, Myrabel, and you’re having your rest-time.”

“I don’t mind,” Myrabel said. “Rocking one of the cussid little pests always does rest me, and that’s a fact.”

She weaved the chair ponderously to and fro, and presently broke out in a fruity contralto:

“Oh, Ringgold was a pirate bold,

Who sailed the seven seas,

With silver buttons on his coat

And gold ones on his knees—”

A milky, contented expression came into Clay’s eyes. The lids drooped. He shoved his thumb all the way into his mouth.

“Here!” Myrabel said, yanking it out. “Don’t do that, that’s nasty.”

“Sing some more,” Clay said.

“I do believe this chair walks, Evelyn,” Myrabel said. “Either I spraddle out its rockers or they’re uneven. I’m a foot further from that table than I was. My old gra’mother had one once—”

“Sing some more,” Clay said, jerking up and down.

“You keep your shirt on,” she said. “Don’t talk when the grown-ups is talking, and if you’re a-going to set in my lap, you stop your bouncing. It makes my stomach rumble.

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