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Updated: May 24, 2025
But all at once, in a certain after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice call to me. "'My father my father" it cried. "It was like a soul in danger calling on God. "The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open, white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some monstrous thing away.
"No, not exactly!" said Joseph, rolling back his wristbands and settling himself in his clothes; "it's the after-clap, if I shouldn't happen to please," he added, in a whisper, that brought his lips so close to the cheek of his fair tormentor, that he absolutely gathered toll from its peachy bloom before starting on his pilgrimage, a toll that brought the glow still more richly to her face.
Mrs. Fortescue took Anita in her lap, as if the girl were indeed the age of the After-Clap. "Do what you like, dear child," she said. "Girls like you can do some things that women can't, because you have the enormous advantage of not knowing anything." Anita, who could plan things quite as well as if she were forty instead of eighteen, bided her time until the hour when Mrs.
The After-Clap gave a spring which he meant to land him in Kettle's arms, but Kettle, bursting into tears, would not take him. "I k'yarn' take you now, honey," cried Kettle, wiping his eyes, "I'm a goin' to the guardhouse, my lamb, for three days and maybe I never see you no mo'." The baby seemed to think this might be true, and set up a series of loud shrieks.
This seemed to dispose of the great difficulty in Kettle's mind, when the Sergeant suggested that he would see the milkman that very evening, and at nine o'clock the next morning, he would go to the officer in charge of mounts, and by ten o'clock Kettle, as soon as he had finished washing up the breakfast things and had taken the After-Clap for his airing in the baby carriage, could step down to the recruiting office and enlist.
The new baby had taken everybody by surprise, and immediately acquired the name of the After-Clap. He coolly approved of his father and mother, and thought Anita an entertaining person when she got down on the floor to play with him. Naturally he was indifferent to his twenty-year-old brother, whom he had never seen, but Kettle his own Kettle was the beloved of the After-Clap's heart.
There was the snow-white cap, with its "fore-clap" and "after-clap," and its inside pockets, all complete; and the wheels neatly carved, and the well-planed boxing and "disselboom," and the strong "trektow" of buffalo-hide. Nothing was wanting that ought to be found about a wagon.
Next to Kettle in his affections was Mrs. McGillicuddy, the six-foot-two wife of Sergeant McGillicuddy, who had eight children, of assorted sizes, and still found time to do a great deal for the After-Clap. Mrs. Fortescue, riding briskly across the plaza, and seeing Kettle, so black, holding in his arms the laughing baby, so white, smiled and waved her hand at them.
"You go 'way!" screamed the After-Clap, raising a copper-toed foot, and kicking Broussard's shins. "You let my 'Nita 'lone, you bad man!" The After-Clap's shrieks brought the chaplain and Kettle and a couple of soldiers quickly out of the chapel.
Either the Colonel or the After-Clap was perpetually in his way, and neither Beverley Fortescue nor Kettle, who were his open allies, nor Mrs. Fortescue, who was secretly on his side, could help him. Broussard, however, swore a mighty oath that he would have Anita's promise before the new year began.
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