Grandmother

“‘Oh! brother, tell me here
Why hold that soul so dear?’
‘Because, alas! since e’er ’twas born,
I feel the piercing of its thorn.’”

CHAPTER VI

HOW SHE WENT VISITING

It was after Rachel’s marriage that Grandmother first began to go about in the village. Till then she had always kept pretty much within the four walls of the Merion garden, and people thought she was proud, until they came to know her. But now a restlessness seemed to come over her, and she was away from home a good deal. She did not go to “circles” and meetings – one would as soon have expected to see a white birch walk into the vestry – nor did she make what we loved to call “society calls;” but she found out the people who were sick or sad or lonely – the Peaces always knew – and she went to them, sometimes with Anne to introduce her, oftener alone, making some errand, taking a flower, or a pot of jelly or the like. Old Aunt Betsy Taggart was living then, the white old woman who had taken to her bed so long ago that none of us young folks ever knew why she had done it. Indeed, I think Anne and I rather supposed she had always been there – grew there, perhaps, like some strange old white flower. She was the most independent old soul, Aunt Betsy. It seemed terrible for her to live there alone, but it was the only way she would live. Her niece, Hepsy Babbage, came in morning and evening, and “did for” the old lady, but she was not allowed to stay more than an hour at a time. “My soul is my own,” Aunt Betsy used to say, “and I like to be able to call it so, my dear!” Hepsy was a great talker, certainly; and Aunt Betsy did her own cooking over a lamp that stood on the table by her bed, and actually made her own butter in a little churn that Wilbur Babbage made for her the winter before he died. (Anne Peace never would let me say that Wilbur was talked to death, but she could not prevent her mother’s saying so.)

Well, Grandmother and Aunt Betsy took to each other from the first moment, and never a week passed that Grandmother did not spend an afternoon with the old lady and take tea. Aunt Betsy seemed to know all about her at once, which Anne and I never did, though we adored her.

“Come here, child!” she said when she came in with Anne, the first time. “I’ve heard of you, and I’m glad to see you. Come and let me have a look at you!” She took Grandmother’s hand in hers, and the two looked at each other, a long quiet look. “Ah!” said Aunt Betsy at last. “Yes, I see. The upper and the nether millstone, my child!”

Grandmother nodded simply; then in a moment she began to talk about the flowers she had brought, and how Anne had helped her pick them, and what a comfort Anne and her mother were to her.

“Such good neighbors!” she said. “Such dear, good, kind, neighbors! This place is so full of good people, Miss Taggart.”

“They call me Aunt Betsy,” said the old lady, “and they call you Grandmother, I’m told.”

“Yes,” said Grandmother laughing; “that is my name, isn’t it, Anne?”

Anne says that she had really forgotten that she had ever had any other name.

“We shall be friends, you and I!” said Aunt Betsy; “and you will find good people wherever you look for them, my dear.”

“Oh, yes, surely!” said Grandmother; and they looked at each other again, that quiet understanding look.

I don’t suppose Anne was very much younger than Grandmother, but she felt a whole lifetime between them, and worshipped the older girl with a very real worship. Grandmother took it sweetly and quietly, as she took everything. When Anne brought some offering, the first bride-rose from her bush, or a delicate cake, or a sunset-colored jelly in a glass bowl, Grandmother would thank her affectionately, and admire the gift, and then would say, “But it is too pretty for any well person, my dear. Let us take it quickly to little Kitty who is so suffering with her measles! or to poor old Mr. Peavy, whose rheumatism is bad this week.”

Anne confessed to me that she sometimes wanted to say, “But I made it for you, Grandmother, not for Mr. Peavy!” but I have often thought that Anne was in a manner serving an apprenticeship to Grandmother, and making ready, all unawares, for the life of love and sacrifice that she too was to lead.

Another of Grandmother’s friends was Parker Patton. He was bedridden, too – I think we were rather proud of our two stationary (I cannot say helpless) people; he had fallen from a haystack – a strong man he was, in the prime and pride of life – and injured his spine so that he could never walk again.

He was not a pleasant man, most people thought; he had a crabbed, knotty disposition, and who can wonder at it? The first time Grandmother went to see him he snapped at her, like some strong surly old dog.

“Who are you?” he said, bending his bushy eyebrows over his bright dark eyes. “Who is it?” to his wife, who was hovering with anxious civility. “Gran’ther Merion’s widder? humph! you don’t look like a fool, but no more did he. What ye want, hey?”

“Oh, father!” said poor Mrs. Patton. “Don’t talk so! Mis’ Merion’s come to visit with you a spell. I’m sure she’s real – ”

“Get out!” said Parker. “Get out of the room, d’ye hear?”

The poor timid soul backed out, murmuring some apology to the visitor, whom she expected to follow her; but Grandmother stood still, looking at him with her quiet sweet eyes.

“You can follow her!” said Parker. “She likes to see company; I don’t! I speak plain, and say what I mean.”

“I’ll go very soon!” said Grandmother. “I’d like to stay a few minutes; may I?”

“If I’m to be made a show of,” growled the cross old man, “I shall charge admission same as any other show. Think it’s worth a quarter to see a man with a broken back? If you do you can stay.”

“I haven’t a quarter,” said Grandmother, “but it’s worth something to sit down in this comfortable chair. Were you ever at sea, Mr. Patton?”

“Ya-a-ow!” snarled Mr. Patton. It sounded almost as much like “no” as “yes,” but Grandmother did not heed it much. She had dropped lightly into the chair, and was looking at a picture that hung opposite the bed; a colored lithograph of a ship under full sail. The workmanship was rough and poor, but the waves were alive, and the ship moved.

“I like that!” said Grandmother softly. “I never saw the sea, but I knew a sailor once.” She began to sing very softly, hardly above her breath.

“There were two gallant ships
Put out to sea.
Sing high, sing low, and so sailed we.
The one was Prince of Luther and the other Prince of Wales;
Sailing down along the coast of the high Barbarie;
Sailing down along the coast of the high Barbarie.”

“Who taught you that?” growled Parker Patton.

“A sailor; his name was Neddard, Neddard Prowst. He came – ” The sick man started up on his elbows.

“Neddard Prowst! he was a shipmate of mine; we sailed together three years, and if I hadn’t come ashore like a grass-fool we might be sailing yet. Where did you see Neddard, young woman?”

“In the mountains. He came ashore; he thought he would like mining, but he didn’t. He was always longing for the sea.”

“Ah! I’ll lay my cargo he was. All seamen have their foolish times. I thought I was tired of the sea; all I wanted in the world was to lay under a tree and eat apples, day after day. Well – here I lay, and serve me right. What about Neddard, young woman?”

“He was very good to me,” she said. “He liked me to sit with him when he was sick; he died a little before I came here. He taught me all the songs. Do you remember, now, this one?

“Hilo, heylo,
Tom was a merry boy,
Hilo, heylo,
Run before the wind!
Heave to, my jolly Jacky,
Pipe all for grog and baccy,
Hilo, heylo,
Run before the wind!”

“Ay! many’s the time! did he learn you ‘Madagascar’? hey, what?” Grandmother, for all reply, sang again:

“Up anchor, ’bout ship, and off to Madagascar!
Cheerily, oh, cheerily, you hear the boat-swain call.
Don’t you ship a Portagee, nor don’t you ship a Lascar,
Nor don’t you ship a Chinaman, the worst of them all!

“Up foresail, out jib, and off to Madagascar,
Call to Mother Carey for to keep her chicks at home.
Ship me next to Martinique, or ship me to Alaska,
But Polly’s got my heart at anchor, ne’er to roam.”

By and by when poor Mrs. Patton ventured to put her timid head inside the door, she kept it there, too astonished to move.