The Doings of David and Peter

VII  THE COMING OF MICHAEL

It was David who, pottering round the house one winter day in search of fresh occupation, came across his mother on her knees in the box-room and decided to investigate the matter. Leaning confidentially over her shoulders, he launched his usual enquiry: 

“Do you know what you are doing?” 

Long ago his mother had ceased to answer this question, except for an occasional retaliation of: 

"Use your eyes!"

 So he was not surprised that she ignored it this time. Since what she was doing was perfectly obvious, he passed to the next questions —

 “Why are you turning out the baby-boxy" 

Once more he drew a blank, but, undeterred, leaned a little heavier so as to get a better view of the contents, and remarked, conversationally: 

“We've still got lots of nappies left." 

"So we have,” said his mother, noncommittally. 

"We'd better not give them sway," he suggested, "in case a tiny baby might come to stay with us." 

"It might," said his mother, “that's why I'm keeping then.” 

“Baby Hilary came once," he reminisced. “She used some of our nappies.” 

His mother nodded. 

“We never know when a tiny baby might come to stay with us again,” she said. 

There was something in this that seemed more than a faint supposition. David knew already his mother's passion for ruthless turnings-out and passings-on to the many needy babies whose mothers came to her door, and he and Peter had formed the habit of surveying their clothes critically, and remarking:

“I'm growing out of this. I. 'spect we better pass it on to another boy who's smaller than me.“ 

The fact that nappies and other things suitable for a “tiny ‘baby" were being carefully sorted and replaced in the baby-box seemed almost a promise that they would be needed, and, without further mention of  the subject, the baby who might be coming dropped into the boys’ conversation. 

Sometimes a pair of socks would be handed over with the suggestion that they had better be kept in case a tiny baby came, sometimes a too-childish toy would be turned out of the cupboard with the same suggestion. Gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the "if" dropped out, and it became a fact that a tiny baby was coming, some time in the summer. 

The question of where it was coming from was a puzzle to David, and led to many earnest questions, which his mother answered to the best of her ability. Some of it he grasped, some was too difficult, but he Was vaguely aware that the baby was growing all these long months and that some time it would come.

 “Will you know when it is time for it to come?" he asked, and she answered, reassuringly: 

"I shall know." 

But months are endless when you are only five and frequently he sighed: 

"That tiny baby is a long time coming. We are getting tired of waiting for it, aren't we?" . 

"If it's a boy, it'll be a brother, and if it's a girl it'll be a sister,” commented Peter.

 "We don't know what it will be, do we?" said David, as one looking forward to a joyful surprise, and Peter advised, gruffly: "Specs we better wait and see," 

And wait and see they did, till one evening, just at teatime, there was sudden excitement and bustle, and the strange appearance of “Auntie-Next-Door" to spread jam and re-fill milk cups, while Mother ran to and fro upstairs, and Daddy dashed out of the house at unusual speed. Then there were ringings at the bell and the arrival of doctor and a new nurse on a bicycle. Daddy seemed too busy to notice them and they were glad when the Auntie-Next~Door suggested that, as she had visitors, they should come back with her for a bit. This was most exciting. Often as they had seen her garden from the windows, they had never before entered it, and there were dozens, or, as he would say, "millions" of things that David wanted to explore at close quarters.

He was a little embarrassed, though, by the presence of the unknown visitors and shyly turned away, kicking a careless foot to and fro when they spoke to him. Not so Peter -- he likes an audience does Peter, and a day like this when there really was news and people who knew nothing about it, was too good to waste. Legs firmly planted and well apart, hands thrust into his knicker pockets, he stood in front of them and explained all about it. 

"We've got a new baby comind,” he said, “and we don't know what it's going to be. It might be a brother or a sister. If it's a boy, you see, it'll be a brother, end if it's a girl, you see, it'll be a sister. And then there'll be free of us. When it's four, it'll go to school like us, and then there'll be four men going off in the morning." 

"What Mummy will do with free, I don't know," sighed David, quoting glibly from one of her overheard remarks. 

Gradually a sense of strangeness came over the boys. The Auntie-Next-Door began to bring in a meal, and they puzzled what it could be. Tea-time was over, supper at home for Mummy and Daddy was an everso-late meal, when it was nearly dark.

"Do go to. sleep, or it will be nearly Daddy's supper-time," was a phrase that only came after hours of tossing on a hot bed. It must be bed-time by now and time to go home. Could Daddy have forgotten them? 

Then, as they stood undecided by the french window, feeling a little intrusive as the visitors took their seats at table, there floated down from an upstairs window of their own house a strange, new sound. With a sigh of relief, David took Peter's hand.

 "We must go home now,” he explained politely, and led him round and in at their own back door. Daddy was there in the hall, hanging up — the telephone receiver. He looked a little bothered and breathless, but he smiled when he saw them. 

"You've got a new baby brother,” he said, and they nodded in agreement.

 "We heard him cry," said Peter gravely. “That's why we came home."