Grandmother

And she would catch their hands and run with them round and round the field till all were out of breath with running and laughter.

The Saturday feasts were begun, Anne Peace reminded me, for the little lame girl who lived a mile beyond the village. The poor little soul had heard of all the merry play that went on at Merion Farm, and had begged her father to bring her in. So one day a long lean tattered man came to the gate and looked wistfully in at Grandmother, who was making daisy chains against the children’s coming.

“Mornin’!” he said. “Mis’ Merion to home?”

“Yes,” said Grandmother; “at least I am here. Would you like something?”

“I swow!” said the man. He looked helplessly at the girlish figure a moment. Then – “My little gal heard tell how that you told yarns to young ’uns, and nothin’ to it but I must fetch her in. She – she ain’t very well – ” his rough voice faltered, and he looked back to his wagon.

“Is she there?” cried Grandmother. “Oh, but bring her in! bring her in quickly! why, you darling, I am so glad you have come.”

A poor little huddle of humanity; hunchbacked, with the strange steadfast eyes of her kind, – wise with their own knowledge, which is apart from all knowledge revealed to those whose backs are straight, – lame, too, drawn and twisted this way and that, as if Nature had been a naughty child playing with a doll, tormenting it in sheer wantonness.

A piteous sight; and still more piteous the shrinking look of her and of the poor gaunt wistful father, watchful for a rebuff, a smile, some one of the devilishly cruel tricks that humanity startles into when it touches the unusual.

But Grandmother’s arms were out, and Grandmother’s face was shining with clear light, like an alabaster lamp. Oh, one would know that her name was Pity, even though none used the name now, even Manuel, even Grandfather himself calling her Grandmother.

“Darling!” she said, and she hugged the child close to her, as if she would shield it from all the world. “Here is a daisy chain for you. See! I will put it round your neck. Now you are mine for the whole afternoon. Good father will go – ” she nodded to the man; “go and do the errands, and see to all his business, and then when it gets toward supper-time he will come back and pick you up and carry you off. And now we’ll go and make some posies for the others; my name is Grandmother; what is yours, darling? whisper now!”

The man turned away, and brushed his hand across his eyes. “Gosh!” he said simply. “I guess you’re a good woman.”

“I’m just Grandmother,” said the girl; “that’s all, isn’t it, Nelly? Good-bye, father!”

“Good-bye, father!” echoed the child, clinging round Grandmother’s neck as though she feared she might vanish suddenly into thin air.

“Sure she won’t pester ye?” said the man, timidly. “She’s real clever!”

“You won’t pester me, will you, Nelly?” said Grandmother.

“Nelly Nell, Nelly Nell,
Come and hear the flowers tell
How they heed you,
Why they need you,
How they mean to love you well.”

And off they went together, little Nelly nodding and waving her hand, with a wholly new smile on her pale shrivelled face.

“Gosh!” said the father again; he had not many words, and only one to express emotion.

When the other children came, they found a little girl with a radiant face, crowned with a forget-me-not wreath, and with the prettiest pale blue scarf over her shoulders, all embroidered with butterflies. She was sitting in a low round chair with cushioned back, and chair and cushion and child were all heaped and garlanded with flowers, daisies and lilies, pink hawthorn and great drifts of snowballs.

Grandmother called to them, “Come children, come! here is the Queen of the May. Her name is Nelly, and she has come to stay to tea, and you shall all stay too.”

The children came up half shy, half bold.

“What makes her sit so funny?” asked a very little boy.

“You be still or I’ll bat your head off!” muttered his elder brother savagely. No one else made any mistake, and most of them were careful not to look too much at Nelly; children are gentlefolk, if you take them the right way.

Then they listened to the story of the princess in the brown dress; how she came into the town, and no one knew she was a princess at all, but every one said, “See the poor woman in the tattered brown gown!” But the princess did not mind. She went hither and thither, up and down, and whenever she met any one who was in need, she put her hand inside the folds of her gown, and brought out a piece of gold or a shining jewel, and gave it to the poor person. So when this had gone on for some time, people began to talk one to another. One said, “Where does this beggar woman get the gold and the gems that she gives?”

“She must have begged them!” said another.

“Or stolen them!” said a third.

Then all the people cried out, “She is a thief! let her be stripped and beaten!”

So they brought the princess to the market-place; and cruel men seized her and pulled off her tattered brown gown; and oh! and oh! children, what do you think? there stood the most radiant princess that ever was seen upon earth; her dress was of pure woven gold, and set from top to hem with precious stones so bright that the sun laughed in every one of them, and her hair (for they had pulled off her cap too) was as fair gold as the dress, and fell around her like a golden cloak. So she stood for a minute like heaven come to earth; and then all in a moment she vanished away, and only the tattered brown dress was left for them to do what they would with.

“So, darlings, be very careful to be nice to everybody, especially to anyone in a shabby brown dress, for there may always be a princess inside it.”

“Did you ever see a princess, Grandmother?” asked a child.

“Oh, I so seldom see any other kind of person,” said Grandmother, “except princes. You have no idea how many I know. No, I can’t tell you their names; you’ll have to find them out for yourselves; and now it is time for a game.”

They were quiet games that they played that afternoon; but as the children said afterwards, some of the best games are quiet. And then came the Feast; a wonderful feast, with a great jug of creamy milk, and all the bread and honey that any one could eat, and little round tarts besides.

“Look at that!” said Rachel to Manuel. They had been for a walk, and came back through the orchard, where the feast was held. “We were going to have those tarts for tea, and she has given every last one to those brats. That’s all she cares for, just childishness. She’s nothing but a child herself.”

“Nothing but a child!” echoed Manuel, and he added, “She has never lived; sometimes I think she never will.”

CHAPTER IV

HOW SHE SANG GRANDFATHER TO SLEEP

Grandfather began to fail. He complained of no pain or distress; but his stately figure seemed to shrink, and his head that he used to hold so high was now bowed on his breast, and he began to creep and shuffle in his walk. Widow Peace said the change had begun when he came back from the vain search for his graceless son, and I think it was true. “He won’t more than last out the winter,” said Mrs. Peace, “if he does that. The Merions don’t run much above seventy.”

“Don’t, mother!” said Anne.

“Don’ting won’t stop the course of nature,” said her mother, “nor yet is it proper you should say ‘Don’t’ to me, Anne Peace.”

“I beg your pardon, mother; I meant no harm.”

“No more you did, daughter. You may hand me the tape measure. Anne, if you can tell me how to cut this dress so as to make Mis’ Broadback look like anything besides Behemoth in the Bible I shall be obliged to you.”

“You’re real funny, mother!” said Anne, who never quite understood her parent.

“Fun keeps the fiddle going!” said Mrs. Peace. “You may cut them gores if you’re a mind to, Anne. There’s Rachel and Manuel goin’ off again. S’pose they’re goin’ to make a match of it?”

“Oh, mother!” said little Anne.

“‘Oh,’ said the owl, and set up a hootin’,
But Jabez kept still when he done the shootin’.”

What does Grandmother do these days? I haven’t seen her go out of the gate for a week and more. You were over this morning, wasn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Anne. “Oh, mother, she just sits by Grandfather all the time – when her work is done, that’s to say; Grandmother never slights anything; sits by him all day, reading to him when he’s awake, or talking, or singing those little songs he likes; and when he drops off asleep she just reaches for her sewing and sits and waits till he wakes up. And she’s growing so white and thin – there! it just makes me ache to see her. I said to her ‘Grandmother,’ I said, ‘when he drops off asleep that way, you’d ought to slip out into the garden for a mouthful of air, even if you don’t go no further. Rachel can stay round,’ I said, ‘case he should want anything,’ I said. But she just shook her head. ‘No, Anne!’ she says. ‘I must be here,’ she says. ‘He has been so good to me; so good to me; he must always find me here when he wants me.’

“And sure enough, mother, directly he woke up, before he opened his eyes he says ‘You here, Grandmother?’ kinder restless like, and she says ‘Yes, Grandfather, right here!’ and laid her hand on his and began to sing, and he smiled real happy and contented, said he didn’t want anything except just to know that she was there. But, mother, ’tis a sweet pretty sight now, to see them two together. Of course he’s an old man and she’s a young girl, but yet – well, they aren’t like other folks, neither one of them. What makes you look like that, mother?”