Classic Audiobook Collection - The Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

The Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler audiobook. Genre: comedy The wry humor of Ellis Parker Butler, who gave us the classic Pigs Is Pigs, takes us into his own married life where Marthy and Hiram live quietly in their Colorado town. They don't have trouble with anyone of their neighbors. Why should they, as they don't have any kids that could cause the neighbors trouble? And oh, luckily they don't have kids because how could Hiram otherwise afford to give his wife, Marthy a new silk dress? Really lucky. The neighbors kids are cute and all but ugh, they are much better off without kids and their expenses and sicknesses and trouble. Except that one boy, well, he's cool, Hiram wouldn't mind having him around and teaching him how to fish. Or maybe the neighbors youngest daughter, shes so nice. All of this superiority changes when they expect a child of their own and then the poor little thing is born. Funny, poignant and oh, so true! For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:18:02) Chapter 02 (00:36:32) Chapter 03 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chapter 1 of Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler Chapter 1 Our Neighbors Babies I guess we folks that live up at our end of town think we are about as good as anybody in Colorado and maybe a little better. We get along together as pleasant as you please, and we are a sort of colony, as you might say, all by ourselves. Me and Marthy make especially good neighbors. We don't have no fights with the other folks in our end of town, and in them days the neighbors

hadn't any reason to fight with us, for we didn't keep a dog and we hadn't no children. I take notice that it is other folks' dogs and children that make most of the bad feelings between neighbors. Of course we had mosquitoes, but Providence gives everybody something to practice up their patients. And when me and Marthy sat out on our porch and heard other people's children frettened because the mosquitoes was bad, we just sat there behind our screen porch and thanked our stars that we didn't have no children to leave our screen doors open. It wasn't but right that me and Marthy should act accordingly. I don't mean that we were upish about it, but we did

feel that we could live a little better than our neighbors that had all the expense of children and if our house was fixed up a little better and we was able to go off three or four weeks in the summer to the mountains when all the rest stayed right at home we had a right to feel pleased about it lots of times we had things our neighbors couldn't afford and then the little woman would say to me "'Hiram, you don't know how thankful I am that we ain't got any children.' And I agreed with her every time, and did it hardy, too. It wasn't that we hated children, far from it. We just thought that when we saw all the extra worry and trouble and expense that other people's children brought about, we were right satisfied to live the way we had lived the five years since we was married. Our neighbor still called us the bride and groom.

nor i can't say that we were happier than the other folks in our end of town but we was more carefree we lived more joyous as you might say one night when i come home from the store marthy met me at the corner and when i had tucked her arm under mine i asked her what was the news bobby jones had cut his finger bad stell marks had took the measles little tot hemingway had run off and her ma had gone near crazy until the kid was found again. The Wallace's wasn't going to take no vacation this year at all, because Fred was to go off to school in the fall, and they couldn't afford both. It was the usual lot of news of children being trouble and expense. I was feeling fine the next day being a holiday, and Marthy, with the slick way women has, sprung a favor on me

just when she set the broil's stake on the table. "'Extry thick and burnt brown. That's my favorite steak. "'And whenever I see it that way, my mouth waters and I look out for a favor to be asked. "'Hiram,' she says, quite as if she was opening up a usual bit of talk. "'Did you take notice of Mrs. Hemingway's silk dress last Sunday?' "'Why, no, Martha,' I says. "'I didn't. Was it new?' "'No,' she laughed.

"'The ID.' "'That's just what. it wasn't. I believe she has had that same silk ever since we lived in this end of town, and no one knows how much longer. It's a shame. She puts every sense she can dig up on those children of hers, and has hardly a decent thing of her own.

I feel right sorry for her. I feel sorry for Hemingway, says I. The old boy is working himself to death. He never gets home until supper is all. over and he told me just now that he felt that he is bounden duty to work tomorrow i tell you marthy children is an expensive luxury that's just what they are she agreed if it wasn't for their children the hymn ways could live every bit as good as we do and he wouldn't have to work of nights poor fellow but hiram she says as if the idea had just hit her do you recall to mine when this end of town has seen seen a new silk dress? Why, no, no, I said, when was it?

Years ago, says the little woman. I was figuring it up today, and it was full two years ago. Ain't it awful? Downright scandalous, I says. And just on account of those children, too. Marthy looked down at her plate, innocent as you please. I'm glad we ain't got any children, Hiram. she says, full of mischief.

That tickled me. I was tickled to see how she was tickled to think she had trapped me. I guess it's a bounden duty to hold up the honor of our end of town by showing it a new silk dress, I says. And the next thing I knew, I was fighting to keep her from choking me to death. All that evening, Marthy was unusual quiet and right happy, too. As she sat on the porch, her eyes would wander off over the hills and fall. away, and I knew she was lost in joyous tanglement of bias and gores and plaits, where a man can't follow if he wants to.

But when we went inside and had the blinds pull down, she put her arms around my neck again and gave me another choke. "'Dear, dear, O Hiram,' she says, and her eyes was tear wet. "'Just think a new silk dress!' And just then there came into the room. room, the noise of the Mark's child, the one with the measles, whimpering. "'Ain't you glad,' says the little woman, "'that we haven't any children to spoil all our fun and bother us?'

And when I looked down into that happy little face of hers, I was glad, and no mistake. The next day was a beauty. It came up like a glory, and we was up almost as soon as the sun was. for we had figured on one of our regular old-time jolly days by ourselves on the hills, one of the kind that made our into town call us the bride and groom. It was our plan to take a good lunch and just wonder. Marthy was to take a book and I was to take my fish and tackle, and beyond that was whatever happy thing that turned up.

If we had children, she said, we couldn't go off on these long tramps by ourselves. We got away while the neighbors in our end of town were still at breakfast, and as we passed the Wallace's place we ran up to holler goodbye, through the window at them, and there was the youngest Wallace, fooling on the floor with her stockings not on yet, and breakfast half over. Marthy stopped long enough to have a good long look at the child. If all the children was like Daisy Wallace, she says, they wouldn't be so bad. she is the dearest thing I ever did see.

She's got the cutest way of kissing a person on the eyelids. She looks to be just as lazy in the dress and act as the rest, I remarked. And I was surprised the way Martha turned on me. Why, Hiram Smith, she cried. Didn't you ever dawdle over your dressing? When I was a girl, I got lots of fun out of being late to breakfast. What difference does it make, anyway, when she is perfectly lovely, all the rest of the time. I simply love that child. I wonder, she said, sort of wistfully,

if they would let us take her with us today. She would enjoy it so. Foolishness, I said, we don't want to pull a kid along with us all day, and anyhow they are going to take her to the photographers today to have her picture took. We went out around town and up the hill road. The morning air was great, and nobody on the road at all as far as we could see, and we stepped out brisk and lively. Seems good to get away from the Baby District, don't it, I says, as we was walking up the road. We're like Mr. and Mrs. Robinson Caruso. And at the very next turn we most fell over Bobby Jones and his everlasting chum, Rex, which is the most no-count dog on earth. "'Where are you going?' he asks.

"'No where's particular,' says Morthy. "'Just walking out to get the air.' "'So am I,' says he. "'And then he says sort of bluffing. "'I ain't lost.' "'Yes, you are, Bobby,' I says, severe as I could. "'And if you know what's good for a kid about your size, "'you'd better turn right round and scoot for home.'

"'He looked at me as if he would like to know who I was to be in him. "'Ho,' he says, "'you ain't my paw. "'I don't have to do what you say. "'I won't go home for you.' "'Marthy was bending over him in a second. "'Bobby,' she says, coaxing like,

"'do you know what your folks is going to have for dinner?' "'Know him,' he says, as polite as you please. "'I do,' says the little woman. "'I scream. "'And if you get lost, you won't get home in time to get in Bobby looked up the road where he hadn't explored yet, and then looked back the way he'd come, and then he smiled at Marthy and took off his cap to her. "'Thank you, Mrs. Smith,' says he.

"'Marthy laughed as happy as a girl, and kissed him right on his dusty face. She put her arms around him even and acted like she had never seen a freckle boy before. "'Nice boy,' I remarked when Bobby had gone down the road to our town. "'Nice!' says the little woman. "'Nice! Is that all you can scrape up to say? "'Why, there ain't a dearer child in our end of town than what Bobby is. "'He's my sweetheart when you ain't at home.' "'Hiram,' she says, looking back at him as he paddled along,

"'kicking up the dust with his bare toes. I wonder if we dare take him with us. What about his ice cream, I says? What about having a kid dragging after us all day? So we went on, But I seen she felt a mite lonely like, as you might say, which was queer. By ten o'clock we had got far enough from town, and we pushed through a field that was all covered with flowers,

and over to where the brook was, with the tangle of trees and brush hiding it, and when I pushed apart the brush to go through, I stopped in motion for Marthy to come quiet and look. There, sitting on a tree trunk as quiet as you please, was Teddy Lawrence, with his eyes glued on to his bobber and thinking of nothing in the world but fish.

I'm a right-hearted fisher myself, and it'd done my heart good to see the strictly business way that kid had. "'Marthy moved a little, and I put my hand on her to make her keep still. "'The boy lifted up his pole and looked at the bait like a regular old hand. "'He dug a fresh fat worm out of his can and fixed it. "'And then I fairly held my breath. "'Would he do it?' "'No. But hold on, yes.'

"'He leaned over and spit on the bait to bring luck just as natural as life. "'Say, wasn't that real boy for you?' i let the brush come together real quiet and me and morthy slipped away well sir my five-dollar pole and my two-dollar reel made me feel sick what did i know about fishing anyway i felt right there what was the truth that all my fishing amounted to was that i was trying to bring back the joys i used to have when i was a kid sitting on a log happy and lonesome watching my bottle cork joggle on the ripples what was the use. A fellow can't go back to them days. There ain't nothing to do about it. Unless, of course, he can sort of go forward to them and, well, a fellow could sort of live them days over again in a boy of his own. Wallace don't deserve that boy, I says, sort of mad about I don't know what. What sort of dead is that old bookworm of a Wallace for a boy that likes the fish like Ted does?

I'll bet Wallace never had a fish pole in his hands since the day he was born. Now, if I had a bar like that, I could show him a thing or two about fishing. If I had a boy like that, look there, says Marthy, sudden. Did you ever see anything sweeter than what that is? Over on the other end of the field, Ted's sister was straying around in the flowers, her face all rosy with the fresh air. She was like a butterfly in amongst the little. the butterflies. A mighty pretty girl, and just the age when a mother loves a girl best.

And when a mother takes the most care of them, I like pretty things as well as the next man does, and I'll say right here that there was something about that girl that made me feel like I'd like to own her, just like I felt about a real pretty rose, sort of covet to keep it just as it is forever, and take care that it don't get spoiled anyway. I guess Mrs. Wallace don't rightly appreciate Mary, says Marthy, thoughtful-like. I think she makes her study too much. When I was Mary's age, I had plenty of chances to get the fresh air, and you never see me taking up music lessons in the summer.

I spent my time feeding chickens and running about the farm and enjoying life. It ain't right the way girls is forced in their studies nowadays. If I had a girl like that, if you had, what did you do? I asked kindly enough, but the little woman only laughed. Maybe her laugh was a bit reckless, as you might say. "'What's the use of thinking what I do?' she says, turning round to go. "'There didn't seem to be nothing special for me to say right then, so I just put my arm around her and we went on.

We was plumb-tired out when we got home, and maybe that is why we was more than usual quiet at dinner. I sure wasn't cross, but somehow our day hadn't panned out as satisfactory as we thought it would, and maybe the crying of the Wilkins' new baby got on my nerves. We being tired. I was glad when dinner was over and we could take our chairs and go out on the porch. It was a fine night, still and calm as you please. The only noise, not counting the crying of the Wilkins kid,

was the sound of the laughing and chatter of the kids in our end of town. But I was lonesome. I can't speak for the little woman, how she felt. But I felt lonesome. And her right there beside me, too. Across the street we could see the two Hemingway children who had coaxed an extra half-hour to wait for their father to come home before they went to bed.

They had their heads bent over a tumbler that they had caught two fireflies in, and on the porch, Mrs. Hemingway was rocking the sleepy baby. Then we heard Hemingway's whistle. He can't whistle, but he likes to. And the two children dropped the tumbler and run to the gate. And then there was a rush and a mingling up of Hemingway kids and father, and the sleepy baby slid down from his ma's lap and stood unsteady but trying to get in the kissing, with its arms held out.

Happy? I turned to the little woman. and I looked straight at her. Somehow I knew that now, if ever, was the time for me to do some cheering up. Well, little woman, I says, cheerful like, we don't need a lot of kids to boast our love, do we? She gave my hand a soft squeeze and reply. And about that gown, that silk gown, I says Galey. Have you decided what color it is to be yet?

Won't you be fine? When I think I'll find you look, I'm glad we haven't no children to. Just then, them Hemingways went inside, and our whole end of town was quiet and lonesome. Marthy didn't answer, and when I lifted up her face to kiss her, what do you think? She was crying. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of The Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler. This Libre Vox recording.

is in the public domain. Chapter 2 When she came Before the kid come, me and Marthy used to sit up nights telling each other how much we like it if she turned out to be a boy. I said everything that I knowed

that was nice about boys and draw it on my imagination for what I didn't know, and Marthy spoke the same, so I convinced Marthy thorough that I would be terrible disappointed if it wasn't a boy. and she didn't leave me no doubts about her hankering for a baby of the male sect. Of course, we was both trying to square ourselves in case it should be a boy.

Come to find out, we was both of us tickled to death that it was a girl. We talked over boys' names by the bushel without ever coming to a dead set choice, but we most always squeezed in somewhere, sort of apologetic, or remark that if it should happen to be a girl, we'd have to call it Edith. Edith L. after its grandmother. Somehow, as I look back on it, it seems as if I'd never thought of that kid at any time except as Edith L. Curious how folks will try to fool themselves that way. When it comes to the auspicious occasion, we had Doc Wolfert in, because he was the only doc in our end of town.

He certainly was a quaint old bone-setter. Some said he took morphine on the sly, and some said it was just his natural manner, but he was the shiftyest-eyed medic you ever saw. No man living ever got him to say plain yes or no. He'd walk all round them little words like he was afraid of stepping on him, and his gab was full of perhaps as impossibly than similar slick side-trackers of knowledge. I figured that when the four-auspicious occasion turned up, I'd clean out to the woods until things got so I'd be useful as well as ornamental. But when it came to a showdown I couldn't.

Farthest away I could get was the front porch. I'd done my good twenty miles on the porch that day, I'll bet, and whenever I've had a trial and tribulation time since then, I can hear the sixth bore from the south end of that porch squeak. I was walking on the level, but my spirits was climbing hills and coasting in the valleys. First minute, I would be sticking out my chest and thinking how all-fired grand it would be to be a daddy. And the next minute I'd cave in like a frost-bitten squash and wonder how in creation I'd ever drag along as a widow man. One minute I'd see myself sky-hooting round with a fine kid on my arm, and the next I'd see myself alone with Dorothy gone. I've got the reputation around here of being a humorist man, but I didn't say no funny things to myself that day that I can remember.

I had fever and cold sweats and double contraction of the heart, and whenever I thought of Marthy, I couldn't think of a decent thing I'd ever done to her. I felt I was an arnery, low-down critter, which I ain't, and I saw Marthy as a spotless angel, which she ain't neither. She's a woman and Earthie all through, and mighty good earth at that. Marthy never knew what a good chance she lost of being considered a perfectionated saint, but she missed the chance. Just about when I'd given up all hope of ever seeing Martha alive again,

Mrs. Murphy, who we got in to sort of give the kid its first tarlet, it not being expected to be far enough advance to do much prepping on its own account right at first, come to the door like a blessed ray of sunshine and percolated out a smile at me. Looney as I was I had since enough left to know that she wasn't smiling at me for flirtation, nor because she had a smile that she didn't know what to do with and so was passing it out to me like a handout, just to get rid of it. I connected that smile with other things. I know she was smiling me back from a desolate widowhood, or widow-manhood or whatever the right word is.

I know the right word, but it's got mislaid. Thank the stars I ain't ever had no use for it, and I hope never to have. But I guess every man feels like I did when I was walking that porch. When they shut the door on him and turn him out and tell him they will call him when they want him, he's a widow man right from that moment and feel so. And when they call him in and say all's doing as well as could be expected under the circumstances, Right then, he feels like his wife has rose from the dead, and he becomes a married man again. I felt so, anyhow, and I don't know as I'm a specially fancy feeler.

I don't look at. Right then, I was boosted, like I tell you, from a deep black hole to a high and airy location, and by a plain-faced, baggy Irish lady that did wash in by the day at fifty cents a day, and you furnish the soap. She's been my friend ever since and always will be. As I passed in, feeling more like war-hooping than that walking soft, she whispered three words at me that finished me up. "'It's a girl,' says she. "'Walk light and stay where you are,

"'and when you can come in and see the girl, I'll bring her out and show her to you.' I was clean idiotic with satisfaction. I sat down on the edge of a chair and twirl my hat until I couldn't sit. still, and then got up and edged round the room looking at the pictures on the wall for all the world like I was a visitor. I got halfway through looking at the things on the what-not, and was casting my eye round for the photograph album, when Mrs. Murphy stuck her blessed face into the parlor. "'Sh!' says she. Make no noise. "'And control your feelings, and you can come in for a quarter of a second and see your daughter.'

I was so proud I had cold chills, and I walked like a close horse on Castras. I looked for Marthy first, and I see she was asleep in beautifully, and then Mrs. Murphy pulled down the covers and showed me Edith L. I took her all in at a glance, and I formed my own opinion right there. I was like a rubber balloon when you stick a pen in it, but I didn't collapse with a bang. I just caved in, gradual. I went out of the room and out of the house

and sat down on the porch step and blubbered. They never missed me. When I think back on that day it makes me laugh. But I was sure a rank amateur in the baby business, and I didn't know no better then. Right now I'd put up every cent I've got that you couldn't find a finer girl in the state than what Edith L. is, and I've learned since that she's.

was what you might call an A-1 baby right from the start, but it didn't look that way to me. She was the first of that age I'd ever been introduced to, and she looked different than what I'd figured on. I'd seen plenty of brand-new colts, and they run largely to legs, but you'd know them for horse critters right off. And I've seen brand-new puppies, and their eyes ain't open, but you'd know them immediate for dogs. But that kid did it. It didn't look any more like what I calculated Edith L. would look like. And a cucumber looks like a watermelon. My heart was plumb broke.

I was scared when I thought what happened to Marthy when she saw that wrinkled red little thing. I knew we'd have to keep it, but I didn't see how we could bear the shame. I made up my mind in a minute that we'd sell off the place and move up into the mountains. just me and Marthy and the girl. I didn't think of her as Edith L. anymore. It wouldn't do to insult Mother by giving her name to that baby. I figured it all out how I'd act better to Martha than ever to make up for the trial that girl would be,

and how I'd do all in man's power to keep the girl from knowing how handicapped she was by her looks. Just then Brink to me passed by and he says, How's things coming along? The boys had all been mighty interested in this baby business, and I knew he tried off and tell them, so I says, sad enough, it's a girl. Brink's seen wasn't very jubilant, so he says, you don't seem very stuck up about it, but girls ain't so bad when you get used to him. Lady all right? Yes, I says she's okay.

"'Brink hung around a minute or two, waiting for further orders, and none coming, he says, hesitating so long. I let him go and was glad he went. I looked out across the river and calculated how I could fix it so Mrs. Murphy wouldn't say nothing outside about that poor kid of mine, and how to keep the kid hid until me and Morthy could take her and skid out for the mountains. Mrs. Murphy was a terrible chatty lady, sort of perpetual phonograph and wholesale and retail news agency. I guess the best I could do was to lock her in the cellar, and then heard all comers away from the house. Doc Wolfert didn't bother me any. I knowed he wouldn't give me away.

If anybody could so much as get him to admit that there was the baby born at my house, they would be lucky. Just as a sample of what Doc was like, take the case of Sandy Sam, who fell down the mine shaft and was brought up in the bucket as dead as Adam. Doc was on the ground as soon as they brought Sandy up, and one of the boys that come late asked Doc what caused the crowd to congregate. Well, says Doc, looking off at an angle into the air, it looks like Sandy Sam or some other feller fell down the mine shaft. "'Poor old Sam,' says the feller. "'Killed him, didn't it?' Doc looked at the sky and considered, "'It's a remarkable deep shaft,' he says at last.

"'Remarkable deep.' "'Thunder,' says the feller. "'I know it's a deep shaft. "'What I asked you is if Sam's dad, is he?' "'Doc went off into a dream, "'and when he come to he looks at the feller, "'Oh,' he says absent-like. is sam dead perhaps perhaps he is i shouldn't like to say but he ended up sort of pulling himself together at the finish i wouldn't like to express my opinion but i guess the boys think he is they're going to bury him

so i wasn't afraid of doc wolford babbling i know the worst and like everybody else i wanted somebody to tell me it wasn't so bad as i thought nailed doc as he come out a bad backed him up against the porch pillar and conversed with him right there. I wanted to know just how bad it was. I wanted to know what hope there was, if any. Doc, I said, and I was blessed glad I had a beer so he couldn't see the queries in my chin. She's terrible undersized, ain't she? Hmm, says Doc. You might call her small, or you mightn't.

I've seen them bigger, and I've seen them smaller. I've seen them all sizes. I couldn't see much help in that. Doc, I said trembling. She won't always be so, so dwarf-like, will she? She'll grow some. Probably, says Doc. I'd hate to say she wouldn't.

I groaned. I had to. Ain't her head a little off-shed. "'Shap, Doc?' I stammered out. "'I guess the shape of the head had worried me most of all. "'It weren't just what I'd known good heads to be.' "'You think so?' asked Doc, absent like. "'Don't you?' I went back at him.

"'Tell me straight. I can stand the worst.' "'Hugh,' he says. "'Heads differ. I've got to go.' "'No, you don't,' I says, backing them up against the post. not till you tell me. Her legs now. Think they will ever straighten out? Think she'll ever get over that red-scalded look?

Thinks she'll ever be able to talk, Doc? Doc looked anxious toward the world. Don't worry, he says. Don't fret. Keep cool and calm. Yes, I says scornful like. Me, keep cool. Don't you know that I'm that poor little bent-up kid's daddy?

Don't you know I look forward to calling her Edith L? Don't you know, Doc? I says strong and forcible. Money ain't no object in a case like this. Tell me this. Shall I get a specialist? Would it do any good to send to Denver and get a specialist or Chicago or New York? Doc looked interested at the horizon.

Why, no, he says. No, I don't see that it would. I'll bet that that was the first time Doc ever said no, straight out. It settled me. I let go of his arm and sat right down. If Doc Wolford spoke up and said, No, I knew there wasn't nothing to be done. I sat there probably about a thousand years, if you count by feelings. I had a wish to go in and see the kid, and then again I hated to. I hated for Mrs. Murphy to look at me. I felt I'd blubber, and I was ashamed. But I knew I'd ought to be there to take Marthy's hand when she woke up, and to lie to her about it not being so bad as

she would think. That made me pull myself together. I made up my mind that I'd be a man, anyway. I had Marthy to think of, and a man ain't made to be blubbering around when his women need help. I swallowed down the chunk of my neck that had got stuck in my throat and swiped my eyes and stood on my legs. When I turned, Mrs. Murphy was in the door. "'Well,' she says, "'you don't take much interest, I must say. "'Here you sit and join the landscape "'and your daughter asking where her father has gone to,

"'and is she an orphan or what? "'Come in,' she says, "'or she'll be coming out.' "'I walked in. "'I stopped a bit by the bedroom door to get up my courage, "'and then I walked into the room. "'Marthy had her eyes open, "'and they looked up at me with a smile in them,

"'and then looked down again, at the bunch on her arm under the quilt. "'Come and see her,' she says, feeble but proud. "'Come and see your daughter, Edith L.' She slid down the cover so I could see her, and I looked at that kid with a sick grin. "'Ain't she lovely?' she says. "'Sure,' I says, lying bravely.

"'Don't talk,' says Mrs. Murphy speaking to Marthy, or the session is ended. "'Just one word,' I says. "'Morthy, are you satisfied with her, with the kid?' "'She's perfect,' she says. "'Perfect and lovely.' "'All right,' says, then I don't mind.' "'Marthy smiled sort of weak.

"'You will joke,' she says. "'Joke,' says Mrs. Murphy indignant. "'Insult, I call it. "'Did you ever see a finer baby?' "'I looked to see if she winked. "'She didn't.' "'How so?' I asked. "'My voice, all of it tremble.'

"'How so?' she asks. "'No, how so at all. "'She weighs ten pounds, and she's sound in wind and limb,' she says. "'And look at the grand shape of her head. "'She'll be a college professor at least, or maybe in Congress, before her paw. "'It's a grand baby she is.' "'Ten pounds?' I says. "'Ain't that some dwarfish?'

"'Here the man,' she says. "'I don't believe he knows a fine baby when he sees one.' "'Do you mean that, Mrs. Murphy?' "'I asked every bit of blood in me going on the jump. "'Mean it,' she says. "'I've had six of my own, and not one of them could hold a candle to this one.' "'Morphy,' I says. "'Is it so?'

"'Mrs. Murphy has fine children,' she says, "'but my little girl I think is finer.' "'How's her head?' I asked. "'Perfect,' she says. "'And her collar?' "'So healthy,' she says. "'And her legs. "'So straight and strong,' she says.

"'I took hold of her hand and squeezed it good, "'and then I went to the window and looked out, "'and I saw all the boys lined up along the fence "'waiting for me to come out and let them know that what I'd told bring to me was so.' "'Proud?' "'I was so proud I was so proud I've. felt like giving Mrs. Murphy a million dollars. Dang it, I yelped.

Let her dad have another look at Edith L. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of The Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler. This Libre Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 3. The Day of the Spank. Now, you just take a good look at this here, right, of mine. Looks like a ham, don't it? And see all them calluses on the palm? Ain't that a tool

fit the break rock with? And what do you say if I told you I use that wants to hit that little tender kid of mine—actually hit her? What do you say to that? I won't forget that night soon, I tell you. Just figure to yourself that it's sundown, and the blinds pull down in the room where Dee's cot was standing like a little iron bar cage. We got into the way of calling the kid, D.D., that being what she called herself. There was all the signs that D.D. was going to sleep, and the plaintiff's sign was D.D. herself, standing up in her crib, wide awake, holding on to the foot of the crib, trampling the sheets into a tangle of white underbrush, as you might say, and no more

asleep than you are. The way D.D. went to sleep was like the death of an Alec. It was a long and strenuous affair. Marthy stood looking at D.D. with reproaches in her eyes. We had a sort of tradition in the family that D.D. had to go to sleep quick and quiet without any nonsense. Every night when Marthy put the little white rascal in the crib, she had hopes that the tradition would come true, and every night it didn't. The go-to-sleep hour was the time D.D. seemed to pick out to have an hour of a special lively fun, and for weeks she had been breaking the laws and walking all over the rules

with her pink feet. She did not see, coming up over the horizon and getting nearer every day, the stern and horrid spank. We had got together in a sort of family conclave and decided that D.D. was about old enough to be punished by laying on of hands. We decided it one time when D.D. was out of the room, and we had been right stern about it. We could be stern about D.D. when she wasn't in sight. When she comes smiling and singing along, we generally had to quit being stern and kiss her.

D.D. was 22 months old, and she was 98% pure sweetness. Some of the women in our end of town said her short curly hair was toe-colored, but it wasn't so. They was just envious of us. And one in all, said her eyes was like, little round bits of blue sky. It was clear enough that she had inherited her sweetness from Marthy, and some said it was equally clear that the two percent of unadulterated stubbornness come from me. I said so myself, but I didn't believe it. D.D. was getting to be a regular person.

She could tell what she wanted, and once in a while we could understand what it was. It was full time, everybody said, that her education had ought to begin. If she was going to grow up into a fine, sincere woman like Marthy, she must have the right kind of start. Just the night before the day of the spank, Marthy had begun to teach her her religious education. Standing up at Marthy's knee, for D.D. would not kneel to God or man, she had repeated, No, lay me down e-seep, potty-o-so-tie. Anybody had ought to know that was, Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

It was a fine success for a first start. Only she didn't do what she said she was going to do and lay me down to sleep. Instead of that, she stood up in her crib for about an hour, calling for, May me! The meaning of which was that she wanted to be rocked and have Marthy, saying Mary had a little lamb to her. The day of the spank had a bad opening.

When D.D. woke up along about five o'clock a.m., it was rain and pitchforks, and that meant a day indoors, and to start off, she stood up in her crib and called for, LAM! Marthy woke up, sort of realizing that D.D. was repeating that word slow but regular, and she sat up and thought, LAM was a new word, and the meaning of it. it was unknown, but whatever it was, Dede wanted it. She wanted it bad. Nothing but Lamb would satisfy her. Marthy studied that word good and hard.

It did not seem to suggest anything to eat or drink, and as near as Martha could make out, it didn't rightly apply to any toy, game, song, person, or anything else. "'Marthy woke me up, and I sat up with a sigh. D.D. looked at me as if she thought she would get what she wanted now, sure. "'Lam, D.D., I asked, and she smiled as sweet as you please. "'Papa, Liam!' she says again. "'Lam,' I says, thoughtful, looking around the room and up at the ceiling. I screwed up my forehead and studied and twisted my neck to look into the next room.

Liam. What's a lamb, anyhow? I give it up, I says, after I thought of everything in the world pretty near. Maybe her grandpa would know. Maybe it's something he taught her. We lifted D.D. out of her crib and set her down on the floor, and she pattered down the hall. We could hear her telling him to give her Liam. and the puzzled way he answered her back.

"'Layam, Birdie? What is it? Say it again, Dede. D. D. D. D. D.? Granddaddy don't know what you want, D.D. Neither did Uncle Ed, who was staying with us about then. Nobody knew what Lame was, but D.D. and she wanted it the worst way. She come back and stood by Marthy's bed and just begged for it. It was a hard day for Martha. It was Monday and washday, so D.D. couldn't bother Katie in the kitchen, and it was raining, too. D.D. just wondered through the house like she had lost her last friend, and then she would come back to Marthy and ask for, lay'em.

She wouldn't have nothing to do with her toys, and she wouldn't sew with the pen, and she wouldn't sit at the table and write, and she would look at the photograph-book. and the worst of it was that she wouldn't keep still a minute. By noontime Marthy had a headache. By sundown she had nerves, and about then she began to look at D.D. with a sort of reproachful look. D.D. had said that unknown word about ten thousand times. Marthy put Dedy to bed in her crib, and D.D. stood up and called for, lamb, just as insistent as ever. I read once how Wellington at Waterloo in the big fight they had there prayed for a night, or

butcher, and that was about how Marthy long for the sandman or me to come. I was the one that come at last. I come in the house wet to the skin and plum disgusted. My pants sticking to my legs and all over mud, and I chucked my soaking hat in my umbrella, into a corner the way a tired-out man will, and just dropped into a chair tuckered out. I let out one good, long sigh of thanks that I was at the end of a hard day. "'Hiram,' comes Marthy's voice, "'come in here and see if you can do anything with Edith.

"'I have worked with her all day, and I'm played out. I'm utter tired.' "'Oh, plague,' I says. I sat a minute, drumming on the arm of my chair, and then I got upon my feet and walked into the bedroom. "'What's the matter?' I says as near cross as I calculate I ever get. And Marthy's eyes filled up. "'I can't do anything with her,' she says. She won't go to sleep. She has been dreadful all day.

I don't feel like I could stand it another minute.' Marthy threw herself on the bed and covered up her face with her hands. She was crying. I guess I frowned. Dedey looked up at me as sweet as a little anger. Papa, layam, she says. No, says I. No, Liam, D, D. D.

You lie down and go to sleep like a good girl. Papa will fix your pillow nice. I pounded up her pillow and turned it over and pulled the sheets out. straight. Then I took the baby and laid her down gentle. She smiled and cuddled into the pillow. Oh, what a nice bed, I says. Ain't it a nice bed, Dedy? Nice bed, she allowed. Will I cover your feet, I says? Feet cove, she says, eager. So I spread the sheet up over her feet. "'Shut little eyes,' I says in warning,

"'but as gentle as you please.' "'And she shut her eyes so tight her eyelids wrinkled. "'Now, good-night, Dedy,' I says. "'Night, Papa,' she coos. "'I stole out of the room as quiet as I knowed how "'and dropped cautious into my chair. "'I leaned back and smiled sort of grim. "'That shows, I thinks,

"'that women ain't got the right kind of, of tact to handle a kid or else they've got catching nerves. It shows how easy a man can— Papa, Lamb?" Dede's clear little voice just cut what I was thinking into two pieces. I was into that bedroom in about two steps. D.D. was standing up in her crib. "'Papa, lay'am,' she says, sort of anxious.

No, I says, stern and earnest, no, layam. Papa, lay him, she demands. No, I says, in a way that throws her smile right where it was. She looked up at me doubtful-like, her little pink and white chin puckered up all ready to cry. Papa, Liam, Liam, she pleaded. I reached over and forced her right back on. onto her pillow. D.D., I says in a voice that was new and that she wasn't acquainted with.

Go to sleep. Be quiet. Stop this instant, or I will spank you. I guess maybe the angels kept on singing as joyful as ever up in heaven. I guess maybe somewhere out west further the sun was shining down gay on nodding careless flowers. Maybe even in the next block. Some good baby was being snuggled up in its ma's arms. But to D.D., lying in the corner of her crib,

the world had got a million years older in about a minute. Her world, that had been all smiles and pleasant things, had turned into a world of hard words and cruel faces. Her mama dear had on a mask of unfeeling coldness. Her papa dear stood up there, towering above her, a sort of giant of wrath, flourishing an awful mysterious weapon, the word spank. It looked like everybody had gone back on her. Her friends, which was me and Marthy, her playmates, which was me and Marthy,

her lovers, which was me and Marthy, the providers of her joy, which was me and Marthy, had turned into Avengers. She was all alone in a world of clubs. Just one wee kid and everybody against her. She lay there a minute, palpitating with her chin trembling, piteous. What was to be did when her parents vanished, and these strange, harsh people took their places? She crept to the foot of the crib where I was standing,

and she got up and took hold of my arm and hugged it, "'Papa,' she says loving. I pushed her back on the pillow again, gentle but firm. Edith,' I says in the hard voice she wasn't acquainted with, "'Lie down and go to sleep. I don't want to have no more of this. Go to sleep.' I hear the dinner bell tinkle from the dining room, and I helped Marthy to get up, and we went out and left D.D. alone in the dark.

I ate the first part of my dinner without saying anything. It wasn't exactly easy to be lively under them circumstances. Even Uncle Ned didn't say nothing, and Grandaddy didn't feel called on to start a conversation. It got so we was so quiet. It hurt. Uncle Ed made bold to speak. When I was a kid, he says lightly, I used to get spanked with a six-inch plank.

"'Edward,' says Morthy. "'How can you say such a thing?' "'It done me good,' he says. "'You can't begin too young. "'We've all got the devil in us "'and the only way to get it out is to pound it out.' "'Morothy laid down her fork and her lips trembled. "'Cut that out, Ed,' I says.

"'Morothy has the nerves tonight, "'and the subject ain't popular.' "'I think she's going to be good now,' "'says Granddaddy, who always stuck up the kid being the best that ever lived. She seems quiet enough. She must have gone off to sleep. I sure do hope so, says Marthy.

I never had such a day with her. Mama, layam! Came the little voice from the bedroom of a sudden. I met Tommy today, I says, and he— Mama Leam! Mama Leam! Called Dede. He asked to be remembered to you, I says.

He was with you. Mary Wilson. From the bedroom came a low, maddening wail. Mama, lamb, papa, lamb! It kept getting louder. It got to be a regular cry, punctuated off here and there with calls for lamb. Morthy looked at me, hopeless. I seen the look and looked down at my plate. I'll spank her when I'm done my dinner, I said. there's no other way. We didn't say much during the rest of that meal.

It was a very solemn feast. We was all thinking of D.D. There wasn't no doubt that the time had come we had been afraid of. The punishment and the crime was properly fitted to each other. Now or never was the time to spank. But we was a ridiculous tender-hearted family, and as the dinner went on the spanking of D.D. loomed up bigger than Pikes Peak. It piled up huge and record-breaking above the teapots and the puddings, and looked about as important as the end of the world, or a big war.

When we got up, it was like the condemned going to the execution, and we marched into the front room like a jury, bringing in the death verdict files into the courtroom. Dede still cried for Liam. We four sat down and looked at the carpet. as gloomy as a funeral. I opened my mouth, swallowed hard two times, and shut it again. Uncle Edward tapped on the carpet with his toe. Granddaddy looked at one of the spots on the same carpet like it was a personal insult to him, and Marthy smoothed out one of the roses on it with her heel.

We wasn't half so interested in that carpet when we bought it as we looked to be that very minute. "'Well,' says Marthy at last, "'I kept my eye away from hers. "'I looked out of the window. "'Next I got up and stood by the window "'and stuck my hands deep down into my pants pockets. "'If you're going to,' says Morthy, "'if you ain't.

"'D.D. was getting too bad to stand. "'It looked as if the neighbors would be coming in "'to complain next thing. I turned around and walked slow toward the bedroom. The three other grown-up sat like stone statues. As I pushed aside the curtains, Marthy jumped across the room and grabbed me by the arm. Hiram, she cried eager.

You won't be too severe. You won't get mad and hurt her. Marty, I says, if you want to spank her, do so. If you want me to spank her, don't you mix in. I shook her hand off of me and she went back to her chair, crying. Well, I went into that bedroom. Dedy left off crying when she's seen me, and in the dim light I could see her standing in the crib.

I stuck out my hand to take her, and she hung onto it. Papa, lamb, she begged. Edith, I says horse in my throat. You've been naughty. Papa told you to go to sleep. and Mama told you to go to sleep? When we tell you to go to sleep, you've got to go to sleep. Now this is the last time I'm going to tell you.

Will you lie down and go to sleep? Papa, lamb, she says impatient. I set my mouth and lifted her up and laid her on the bed on her face and held her there. She struggled and yelled. Be quiet, I says be quiet, or I will spank you. She gave one long-lingering cry for Liam. I took a long breath and lifted up my hand, and—and I ain't going to tell about that. Let's go into the other room.

There set the three other grown-ups holding their hands over their ears with pained-looking faces. Even at that they heard the sound of a dozen short, sharp claps, and the sound of the quick cries, and then there was a silent spell, only broken by the great big sobs of the little kid in the next room, sobs that sort of exploded their way out, shaking the little body till the crib rattled. The sobbing got weaker and weaker and came further apart, and I stole out of the bedroom wiping my face with my handkerchief. "'I think she'll be a good girlie now,' says Granddaddy, gentlelike. That baby, shocked and surprised, laid on the pillow thinking as much as a baby could think.

Something cruel and unexpected had happened to her. Me and Morthy had turned cruel. She didn't have no one to love up to. She had been hurt. Her papa dear had hurt her because she had cried for Liam. I hope she will, says Marthy in reply to Grand Dame. and that minute from the bedroom came Dee's voice. "'Papa!' it pleaded.

"'I jumped up from my chair. Evidently that child needed—' "'Papa kiss!' says Dee-D., soft and pleading. "'Well, I rather guess we all kissed her. We hugged her until she was gasping for breath, and she smiled at us and forgave us all, even while the sobs came once in a while to interfere with her smiling. "'Aren't she a dear, dear baby?' cried Marthy.

"'Poor little thing!' "'When we had loved her enough to spoil any good the spanking had done, "'Morthy drove us out. "'Come, dearie,' she says to Dede. "'Say your little prayers, Mama forgot.' "'Didie pressed up against her ma's knees, joyous. "'Now I,' Martha prompts her. noee says ditty lay me says morthy lamb says ditty tickled as you please and then wondering why the whole lot of us shouts out lamb

all of a sudden and why we laugh and crowd round her and kiss her and kiss her poor baby says marthy to be spanked for wanting to say her prayers by george says uncle edward talk about your mortars she beats the whole bunch and to think there was once a time when me and marthy thought a kid was more bother than it was worth there ain't no child nowhere that ain't worth more than everything else in the world all put together No, sir. A baby has got more human nature in it than a man has even. You take your big rough hand to it, and you chastise it so that it screams out, and the next minute it takes time in between sobs to hug its soft little arms around your neck and kiss you. Ain't that the realest kind of human nature? Why, that's the kind that makes the world worth living in at all.

I don't seem to recollect ever hearing that heaven was set aside as a sort of place where married folks could hang about by twos. Them that has had experience knows that would be a mighty poor kind of heaven, one without children in it. It's the child kind of human nature that sweetens up the world. The give and take kind. Take your spanking when it comes and give back love and return for it. End of Chapter 3. End of The Confessions of a Daddy by Ellis Parker Butler.