My head-canon is that Millie didn't actually decide on a name for the baby until that scene after Adam returns from the trapping cabin. So even though Hannah is born in this chapter, I don't refer to her by name. I hope you all enjoy, and thanks again to everyone who's still reviewing, especially WildatHeart7 and tmtcltb-kals.
When the six brothers heard the wails of a newborn baby coming from the big bedroom upstairs, they stopped pacing the floor. It was over! After a long, cold winter of waiting, their new baby niece or nephew – they would find out which one soon enough – had finally been born on a beautiful spring day. They listened to the baby crying, and five of the men smiled with relief. But Gideon was so stunned that he could only mumble, "I'm an uncle," and then he passed out cold, right where he stood. His brothers told him later that his head hit the floor with a clunk so loud that even the women upstairs had heard it.
Gideon fainted when he first heard her crying, and later, when he went upstairs and actually laid eyes on his niece for the first time, he burst into tears and cried like a baby himself. His brothers teased him for it, but he didn't care. Alice handed him a handkerchief, patted his arm, and said gently, "I know just how you feel, Gideon. I could cry myself, I'm so happy."
Gideon just nodded and wiped his eyes. He didn't know how to explain to Alice that he wasn't crying because he was happy – well, not exactly. Of course, a part of him was happy. They were all so happy and relieved that the baby had been born healthy and that Millie had come through the birth safely. The baby's arrival was nothing short of a miracle, given the long, hard winter that they'd all just been through, and Gideon was as happy about it as anyone. He had always been a happy person by nature... but ever since the trip to the family graves on the hillside, a strange cloud of melancholy had settled over him. Seeing the new baby somehow made it even worse.
He couldn't stop thinking back to how surprised the girls had all been when they'd found out about Abigail, their sister who'd died in childhood so long ago. He remembered how quickly their surprise had turned to sorrow for their mother – not their father so much, but their mother. The words they'd said that day rang out over and over in Gideon's mind. Your poor ma. Losin' her only daughter like that and then then never havin' another one. Must've just broken her heart.
The more Gideon thought about it, the more depressed it made him. How much his mother must have longed to have another daughter after Abigail died. Gideon had never thought about this before, but now, it suddenly felt obvious. No doubt that his birth, the arrival of yet another boy, had brought her more disappointment than anything else. What mother would want a seventh son when she already six of them?
The first evening after his niece was born, Gideon watched Millie cradling the baby in her arms, rocking her and singing her to sleep. He could not seem to get enough of looking at them. He thought that Millie had never looked prettier or happier than she did holding her baby. Did all mothers look that happy when they had a new baby? Had his mother? Gideon wished that he could know for sure. He lingered in the cabin, watching Millie and the baby, for as late as he could, until it was time to return to the barn hayloft and bed down for the night.
His makeshift bed in the hayloft was comfortable enough, and he'd gotten used to it over the winter, but Gideon had trouble falling asleep that night. The quiet made it too easy to hear the words still repeating in his head, and he lay awake for a long time, filled with sad thoughts about his heartbroken, daughterless mother.
Your poor ma...
Losin' her only daughter like that and then never havin' another one...
Must've just broken her heart...
When he finally did fall asleep, in his dream that night, Gideon found himself in the parlor of the cabin, as it had looked when he was still a boy. There was less furniture in the room, and it was arranged differently, and there were not yet any windows cut into the split-log walls. His parents were there – his mother in the rocking chair near the fireplace, his father on one of the log-stump stools they'd had before they built the sofa. In the way of dreams, Gideon somehow knew that these people were his mother and father, even though they vaguely resembled Millie and Adam.
His mother was hugely pregnant, and she laid one hand over her belly as she said, "O'Neal, I been thinkin' 'bout what we oughtta name this baby."
"Name it?" O'Neal repeated. He was sitting a bit hunched on the stool, his hands busy working on something that Gideon couldn't quite make out – making bullets, maybe. "But I thought we's already decided on Gabriel."
"You decided," Hilda snapped at him. "See here, Gabriel's an angel in the Bible, ain't he? Well, that just won't work. 'Course I love our boys like only a ma can, but you and I both know ain't none of 'em angels."
"Well, I can't argue with that..."
"I seem to recollect there's a fella in the Bible name of Gideon. That's what I wanna call this next one. Gideon." She smiled as she rocked in her chair, looking satisfied. "That way, we can call him Giddy as a nickname. Giddy means happy, don't it? He won't be no angel, but I got a feeling he'll be a real happy boy."
"Now, see here, Hilda," O'Neal sat up straighter, shaking one finger at his wife, "you know durn well I already got a list of Bible names all written down in every letter from Adam to Zechariah. I wrote down Gabriel for a G-name, and I don't reckon–"
"Well, I reckon if you want a boy named Gabriel, you can birth him yourself, O'Neal!"
When Gideon woke up, he was surprised to find himself back in the barn hayloft with his brothers. He lay still for some time, thinking back to his dream, trying to cling to his parents' faces. He had a feeling, somehow, that it had not been just a dream. He felt sure, somehow, that it had really happened, on this very farm, in the days just before he was born.
In the dream, Gideon realized, O'Neal and Hilda had not even mentioned any names for girls. They had seemed to know already that they would have another son, and his mother... a heavy weight lifted from Gideon's shoulders as he remembered how his mother had actually smiled when she chose Gideon for his name. She had been happy when he was born – happy and maybe a little disappointed, too, that he hadn't been a girl, but mostly, she'd been happy. And if the rest of his dream was true... then it was his mother, all along, who'd first called him Giddy. All his life, Gideon had assumed that Adam had given him that nickname. Adam was the one who used it most.
Adam! Gideon bolted straight up in bed as he realized. That baby girl who'd just been born, his beautiful new niece, she was Adam's daughter. Why, Adam was a father! And he didn't even know it! This was almost too much to believe.
Gideon shot out of bed like a bullet, bumping into his brothers and rousing them from sleep as he scrambled out from under his blankets and down from the hayloft. He punched his arms through his coat sleeves and bounced around on one foot, pulling on his boots, while Ephraim and Caleb, who'd been sleeping nearest to him, crawled to edge of the hayloft and looked down at him, blinking and bewildered.
"What..." one of them started to ask, but Gideon cut him off.
"I'm headed up to the trappin' cabin," he called over his shoulder, hurrying to saddle one of the horses. "I gotta go tell Adam the baby's come! He doesn't even know about her!"
The amount of light in the barn told Gideon that it was near sunrise, and he mounted the horse, waved to his brothers, and called, "Don't worry, we'll be back 'fore dark – both of us!" He rode off before they could reply, and if any of them thought that breaking the news of his new baby to Adam like this was a bad idea, there was no chance to warn Gideon.
Gideon remembered the way from the farm to the trapping cabin well, and most of the winter snow had melted by now. He would find Adam easily enough, and he grinned like a fool as he rode along. He was happy at the thought of finally seeing his oldest brother again, happy at remembering his dream about his parents, happy at imagining Adam's reaction when he told him that Millie had had a baby. Adam would be ashamed of himself, surely, for not being there when his first child was born, and he would want to make up for it. He would probably set off for the farm as fast as the horses could travel.