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’Hurry up, Florcia,’ chided her mother, ’the rest of the family must cat as well’
Florentyria obeyed, and as her brothers arrived from the loft where they all slept, they kissed theirand stared at the newcomer in awe All they kneas that this one had not come from Mother’s stomach Florentyna was too excited to cat her breakfast thattheht and left their mother’s share on the table No one noticed, as they went about their daily tasks, that theirsince the baby’s arrival
Helena Koskieas pleased that her children had learned so early in life to fend for theoats and cows, tend the vegetable garden, and go about their daily tasks without her help or prodding When jasio returned ho she suddenly reabsed that she had not prepared supper for him, but that Florentyna had taken the rabbits from Franck, her brother the hunter, and had already started to cook the meal, a responsibility she was entrusted with only when her mother was unwell, and Helena Koskitwicz rarely allowed herself that luxury The young hunter had brought home four rabbits and the father six ht would be a veritable feast
After dinner, jasio Koskiewicz sat in his chair by the fire and studied the child properly for the first ti the little baby under the Ar the helpless neck, he cast a trapper’s eye over the infant Wrinkled and toothless, the face was redeeaze towards the thin body, so immediately attracted his attention He scowled and rubbed the delicate chest with his thumbs
’Have you noticed this, Helena?’ said the trapper prodding the baby’s ribs ’The ugly little bastard has only one nipple’
His wife frowned as she in turn rubbed the skin with her thuan Her husband was right: the minute and colourless left nipple was there, but where its ht - hand side the shallow breast was completely smooth and uniformly pink
The woman’s superstitious tendencies were iiven to me by God,’ she exclaimed ’See His rily at her ’You’re a fool, Helena The child was given to its mother by a man with bad blood’ He spat into the fire, the more precisely to express his opinion of the child’s parentage
’Anyway, I wouldn’t bet a potato on the little bastard’s survival’
jasio Koskiewicz cared even less than a potato that the child should survive He was not by nature a callous man but the boy wa ’ s not his, and one more mouth to feed could only compound his problems But if it was so to be, it was not for hiht of the boy, he fell into a deep sleep by the fire
As the days passed by, even jasio Koskiewicz began to believe the childman, he would have lost a potato
The eldest son, the hunter, with the help of his younger brothers~ made the child a cot out of hich they had collected from the Baron’s forest Florentynalittle pieces off her own dresses and then sewing theether They would have called hi hireele problem had done for months; only the father had no opinion to offer Finally, they agreed on Wladek; the following Sunday, in the chapel on the Baron’s great estate, the child was christened Wladek Koskiewicz, thehi there was a sift of a goose from the Baron’s estate They all ate heartily
4
From that day on, Florentyna learned to divide by nine, Anne Kane had slept peacefully through the night When her son William returned after breakfast in the arms of one of the hospital’s nurses, she could not wait to hold hiain
’Now then, Mrs Kane,’ said the white - uniforive baby his breakfast too?’
She sat Anne, as abruptly aware of her swollen breasts, up in bed and guided the two novices through the procedure Anne, conscious that to appear eazed fixedly into Williarres blue eyes, more blue even than his father’s, and assiical to be other than pleased At twenty - one, she was not conscious that she lacked anything Born a Cabot, married into a branch of the Lowell family, and now a first born son to carry on the tradition summarised so succinctly in the card sent to her by an old school friend: Here’s to the city of Boston, Land of the bean and the cod, Where Cabots, talk only to Lowells, And Lowells talk only to God