Mr. And Mrs. Blossom
by
The name we meant to call her was Annette, for that was a name I always liked. ‘Way back, before I got married, I made up my mind that if I ever had a daughter I should call her Annette. My intention was good enough, but circumstances of a peculiar nature led me to abandon the idea which in anticipation afforded me really a lot of pleasure. My circumstances have always been humble. I say this in no spirit of complaint. We have very much to be thankful for, and we are particularly grateful for the blessing which heaven has bestowed upon us in the person of our dear child–our daughter who comes from school to-night to spend Thanksgiving with us and with our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Blossom. I must tell you how we became acquainted with the Blossoms.
When our baby was two years old I used to sit of mornings, before going to my work, on the front steps, watching the baby playing on the sidewalk. This pleasantest half-hour of the day I divided between the little one and my pipe. One morning, as I sat there smoking and as the little one was toddling to and fro on the sidewalk, a portly, nice-looking old gentleman came down the street, and, as luck would have it, the baby got right in his path, and before I could get to her she tangled herself all up with the old gentleman’s legs and cane. The old gentleman seemed very much embarrassed, but, bless your soul! the baby liked it!
“A pretty child–a beautiful child!” said the old gentleman, and then he inquired: “Boy or girl?”
“Girl,” says I, and I added: “Two years old and weighs thirty pounds.”
“That must be a great deal for a little girl to weigh,” said the old gentleman, and I saw that his eyes lingered lovingly and yearningly upon the child. I am sure he wanted to say more, but all at once, as if he suddenly recollected himself, he glanced furtively up the street, and then, turning as suddenly the other way, he resumed his course downtown. I thought to myself that he was a kindly old gentleman, a trifle queer, perhaps, but of a gentle nature.
Three or four times within a week after that a similar experience with this old gentleman befell me and the baby. He would greet her cheerily; sometimes he would pat her head, and I saw that his heart warmed toward her. But all the time he talked with us he seemed to act as if he feared he was being watched, and he left us abruptly–sometimes breaking away in the middle of a sentence as if he was afraid he might say something he ought not to say. At last, however, I learned that his name was Blossom, and that Mrs. Blossom and he lived alone in a fine house up yonder in a more fashionable part of our street. In an outburst of confidence one morning he told me that he was very fond of children, and that he felt that much was gone out of his life because no little one had ever come to Mary and himself.
“But,” he added with an air of assumed cheerfulness, “as Mary does not like children at all, it is perhaps for the best that none has ever come to us.”
I now understood why Mr. Blossom was so cautious in his attentions to our baby; he was fearful of being observed by his wife; he felt that it was his duty to humor her in her disinclination to children. I pitied the dear old gentleman, and for the same reason conceived a violent dislike for Mrs. Blossom.
But my wife Cordelia told me something one day that set my heart to aching for both the two old people.