Abigail Zenobia

Abigail Zenobia, usually called Abby, is an infant in Jubal Harshaw’s household whose naming carries a private significance for Jubal: it settles his doubt about her paternity. She is cared for among the household’s children and adults, and her ordinary needs—feeding, sleep, and being held—bring the domestic life of the community into view.

Identity and Place in the Household

Abby is Anne’s baby and one of the infants in the household. When Jubal asks whether it is time for her feeding, Anne answers that waiting a few minutes will not hurt her because Dorcas is lying down with morning sickness. The exchange places Abby within a shared routine of care: feeding and tending children coexist with the adults’ work, and the household adjusts around the needs of both baby and caregiver.

The narration later identifies her by her full name, Abigail Zenobia, while Jubal continues to call her Abby. That difference matters because the names are not merely labels in his mind. Anne had hesitated between Abigail and Zenobia before giving the infant both names, and Jubal recognizes a significance in that choice that Anne has never mentioned. The naming resolves his uncertainty about Abby’s paternity without requiring him to ask Anne or disclose that he understands the names’ meanings.

Care and Affection

Abby’s presence draws affectionate attention from Jubal. When Anne offers to fetch her, she warns that he should refrain from chucking the baby under the chin and making baby-talk noises; otherwise, she will have Dorcas get up and return to work. Jubal responds by promising to make commercial noises instead, jokingly inventing a plot called boy-meets-girl. The humor turns a practical exchange about childcare and work into a glimpse of his eagerness to hold and entertain the infant.

Later, Jubal is given Abby to hold. He tells her she is the most beautiful girl in the world, then soon says the same to Fatima. The narration emphasizes that he means both compliments sincerely and that the babies believe him. His praise has become a familiar household ritual, repeated over many years, but its repetition does not make it empty: the story presents it as a truth of affection that does not depend on ranking one baby above another.

The Household’s Shared World

Abby appears in scenes where care is distributed across a crowded, interconnected home. Patricia shows Jubal a room where children are gathered so Honey Bun can watch them. The boa constrictor is arranged on twin beds in loops that make a divided nest, with a baby blanket cushioning each of two crib-sized spaces and a baby in each. Abby is one of the infants in this improvised nursery, where an animal entrusted with watching the children is treated as part of the household’s familiar life.

When the snake raises its head, Patricia reassures it that Jubal wants to see the babies and asks him to pet it so it will recognize him next time. Jubal first coos at the baby who gurgles and kicks, then pets the snake, admiring its size and markings. The scene places Abby’s care within the household’s strikingly broad sense of kinship: adults, babies, and an unusually capable animal share the same domestic space, without the narration treating the arrangement as a crisis.

Narrative Significance

Abby is not presented as an independent actor; her importance lies in the relationships and routines gathered around her. Her feeding prompts Anne’s practical intervention, her presence elicits Jubal’s playfulness, and her name gives him a private answer to a question he has been carrying. These small circumstances make the infant a measure of continuity within the household, even as the adults’ conversations range beyond childcare.

The scenes also give tenderness a concrete, everyday form. Abby is not introduced through a dramatic revelation but through being fed, fetched, held, praised, and watched over. The distinction between her ordinary infant needs and the elaborate domestic arrangements around her—from adults balancing work and care to Honey Bun’s blanket-lined nest—helps define the household as a place where intimacy is enacted through shared responsibility. Abby’s name quietly closes Jubal’s private uncertainty; her presence, meanwhile, keeps drawing the community back to the immediate work of caring for a child.