Of all the jobs I’ve ever done in this world, the one I never want to do again is babysittin’. Yes, I had a good dorymate, Grampa Walcott, and we come through safe and sound, but when I think back on it... never again.
Grampa was stuck that night good and proper. Now, Grandma and her daughter Aunt Sophy and her daughter Soose, who was here visiting from Corner Brook with her six months old baby, had all been invited out to this special party the Women’s Association were giving on account of there being three generations of members being here at the one time. Of course, they could’ve got Liz Noddy, Jethro’s daughter, to babysit, but Liz would’ve chewed bubble gum all night and brought along her graffaphone records, the ones Grampa can’t stand, and he said a night like that would’ve drove him cracked. So that evening he asked me if I’d take a berth with him babysittin’ and I signed on.
Well from now on whatever babysittin’ there is in Pigeon Inlet can be done by Liz Noddy, with her bubble gum, and her “All Shook Up” and her “Jailhouse Rock” and all the rest of it. The women had gone when I got there, the baby was sound asleep upstairs and Grampa had the cribbage board all set up on the kitchen table. I asked him did he have any instructions what to do if the baby woke. He said no. Soose had made some funny remark about a formula being somewhere. But, being as how the only formula he knew about was the one for finding the number of cords of wood in a pile of pulpwood, we figured, well that had no connection with the baby, so we started our game of cribbage.
The women had said they’d be home before ten, but being women, there was no sign of them at half past, when the baby started to bawl. Well, we waited to see if the squall’d die down but it got so bad ’twas likely to frighten all the neighbours so Grampa went up and brought him down.
Well when that baby grows up, it won’t cost him much in soap to wash his face. All he’ll have to do is open his mouth and there’ll be no face left to wash. Grampa had him wrong end up when he brought him down, but even after he up-ended him right, he bawled harder than ever. I made signs to Grampa, there wasn’t much sense trying to talk, that there must be a pin sticking in him somewhere. So Grampa held him up, sort of as you might say, by the crosstrees, while I examined among his rigging. Next thing I knew the whole outfit tumbled to the kitchen floor and there he was in his bare poles, bawling, if ’twas possible, harder than ever.
Well, Grampa screeched out something to me about getting the canvas back on him quick, but like I told him, anybody with one eye, or for that matter with nar eye at all, could tell we weren’t supposed to put that back on. He agreed, the only thing to do was to poke that into the kitchen stove and look in the sail locker for a new outfit.
Well, we located the sail locker on top of the sewing machine and, after an argument as to whether we should put a jib on him or a foresail, we put both on. Like Grampa said, ’twas best to play safe. The trouble was he only bawled more than ever. “Well, there’s only one salvation,” said Grampa. “Grub. ’Twould’ve been better,” said he, “if Soose had told us what to feed him instead of talking about cords of pulpwood.”
But what could we feed a young fellow that age. Oh, there was cold moose meat in the pantry but, like Grampa said, the rough edges of a piece of that might choke him. Something smooth we wanted, but what? Well there was only one thing, made to order you might say - fat pork. So I took him while Grampa headed for the pork barrel in the back room and come back with a lovely little chunk, about a half of an inch each way.
But I had misgivings. Oh, there was no question about the fat pork as to smoothness or even nourishment. But, with no teeth to chew it, supposin’ it gave him indigestion. Grampa had the answer to that. Tie a string to it. Then, after he’d gone to sleep on it, well if it hurt him, we had the where-with-all to get it back. And that’s what we did.
Well he swallowed that hunk of salt port like a real Northshoreman and before Grampa had him halfway up the stairs, why he was nearly asleep and quiet as a mouse. ’Twas then the horrible thought struck me. Supposing he swallowed the string and all? But when Grampa got back downstairs he said as how he’d thought of that very danger so he belayed the other end of the string to the baby’s big toe.
“But,” said I, “when you laid him down, didn’t he stick his legs up and slacken the string?” “Yes,” said Grampa, “he did. And then, I tied a shipshank in it to tighten it. Then, when he dozes off and straightens his legs, up ’twill come, easy as anything.”
And five minutes later by Grampa’s clock, he creeped up again and there was the youngster, sound asleep with his legs straightened out. Well, Grampa untied the string from his toe, picked up the other end off the pillow and we had both that string and the fat pork in the kitchen stove, on top of that other thing, just as we heard the women coming back from the party.