GRANDMOTHER OWEN'S VISIT
There were other great storms before the winter was over, and spring was
very late that year, but when it did come it seemed to the children as
if the world had never been so beautiful. This was the joy of living in
New England. There was no monotony about the seasons. After a winter
with banks and banks of snow, and coasting enough to satisfy one's
wildest dreams, the snow vanished; and the brown earth soon became ready
for planting; the same miracle began again, of green points poking their
heads up to the light.
And if other springs had been delightful, this was so thrilling Peggy
wanted to dance and shout with joy--for her own dearly beloved Henrietta
Cox was sitting on a dozen eggs, and one day some downy, fluffy chickens
were hatched out. Yes, actually, these tiny creatures--living, moving,
breathing creatures, all of them Peggy's very own--were chipping their
shells, and making their entrance into this wonderful world. Alice took
the chickens more calmly, but she was greatly interested in them in her
quiet way.
"Oh, mother, I do hope grandmother likes chickens," Peggy said, when
Mrs. Owen told the children that she had a letter from their
grandmother, fixing the time of her annual spring visit.
"Peggy, you never seem to be able to think of but one thing at a time,"
said her mother. "What difference will it make whether your grandmother
likes chickens? She won't have to do anything about them."
The children were very much interested in helping arrange the spare room
for their grandmother. Alice got out the prettiest bureau cover from the
linen closet, and the children helped their mother wash the china for
the washstand. It was pretty china, covered with small pink roses, with
green leaves. And there was a pincushion, that was white over pink, on
the bureau. Peggy went out and picked some of the hemlock and put that
in a green vase on the table.
It was a pleasant excitement to have their grandmother come. She always
brought them presents. She was a quiet, dignified woman, and she had
brown eyes very like Alice's, but her hair, that was once brown, was now
snow-white. They all went down to the station to meet her, and they rode
back with her in the taxi, and that was great fun.
Their grandmother was not a person who expressed a great deal, so, when
she came into the house and said, "Mary, how pleasant you have made this
little house look," they were all very much pleased.
The children could hardly wait for her trunk to be unpacked, for they
were eager to see what she had brought. They did not venture to go into
her room; she liked to have her room to herself. She was tired, and it
was almost supper-time before she came down. She had some things in her
hands.
"I have some blue gingham here for a dress for Peggy, and some pink for
Alice," she said. "I have brought some material for new white dresses,
too."
The children were delighted with the thought of their new frocks. Their
grandmother brought them each a book besides.
Lady Janet wandered into the parlor.
"You have the same cat, I see," said their grandmother.
"Oh, no, grandmother, she's different," Alice said. "Don't you see how
different she is? She's her daughter. She hasn't so many stripes on her
tail, and she's a lighter gray. And she's got a different character."
"Has she?" said their grandmother, as pussy began to sharpen her claws
on the sofa. "It seems to me her nature is very much the same. Do you
let her come into the parlor?"
"Sometimes," said Mrs. Owen. "If the children see that she doesn't go up
into the bedrooms and make small footmarks on the bed quilts--that is
all I ask."
"You don't like cats very well, do you, grandmother?" said Peggy.
"Yes, I like them in their proper place."
"What is their proper place?" Peggy asked.
"I like to see a cat sitting patiently in front of a mouse-hole, or
lying on the bricks in front of the kitchen stove; but I don't like to
see it scratching the parlor furniture."
"Neither do I," said Mrs. Owen. "Put Lady Janet out into the kitchen,
Alice."
They all went out to supper, and again the older Mrs. Owen praised the
dainty appearance of the table.
"Mary, I don't know how you have done it, but you have made this tiny
house just as attractive as your large one."
"All the paper and paint are new and fresh here, and I got rid of all my
ugly furniture and have only kept the old pieces."
"I wish you would come and do my house over for me. And, by the way, I
am hoping you and the children will come and spend three months with me
this summer. I am sure the sea air will do the children good."
She did not notice how their faces clouded over. The mere suggestion
filled them with despair. Leave her beloved Rhode Island Reds, Peggy was
thinking, just as Henrietta had hatched out twelve downy, fluffy balls?
Why, they would be big chickens when they came back. Leave Lady Janet?
was Alice's thought. No sea-bathing and boating could make up for the
loss of her friendly little face.
"Could I take Lady Janet with me, grandmother?" Alice asked.
"I hardly think so. A cat does not like to be moved."
"It is very kind of you to think of it," said Mrs. Owen, "but I am
afraid I shall have to stay right here by my garden and my hens."
"Oh, have you hens?" Mrs. Owen asked.
"Yes, grandmother, seven of them and a cock," Peggy said; "and twelve
teenty, tinety chickens, the dearest, cunningest things. Don't you
remember," she added, reproachfully, "how I wrote and told you we had a
birthday surprise party of hens for mother?"
"I do remember it now."
Peggy said no more about the hens. How terrible it was to be so old that
the idea of seven hens and a cock and twelve chickens made no more
impression on one than that! And yet, Miss Betsy Porter must be nearly
as old as her grandmother, and Miss Betsy was deeply interested in hens.
After all, it was the kind of person you were, and not the age.
Two or three days later, as Mrs. Owen was writing letters, she heard
Peggy say to Alice, "I like it better when grandmother isn't here."
"So do I," said Alice. "I wonder when she is going home?"
Mrs. Owen looked up from her writing. "She is going to stay ten days
longer, and then, if I can persuade her, she will come back to us for
the whole summer."
Mrs. Owen turned to look at her little girls. Their faces wore a
discontented, rebellious look.
"Did it ever occur to you that it is of no importance whether you like
the way things are or not?" she asked. "You are two very small,
unimportant people. Did you ever stop to think what your grandmother has
had to bear?"
They had never thought anything about it. Their minds had been entirely
taken up with their own affairs.
"Your father was your grandmother's only child," Mrs. Owen went on, and
her voice was unsteady. "She owned the big house we used to live in, and
every summer they came to it, so that your father and your Uncle William
and I played together when we were children. When your father became a
doctor and married me and settled down here, she gave us the house for a
wedding present. Think, Peggy, for a minute, of what it meant to you to
lose your father. But you had only known him a few short years, and you
and Alice are so young you have a whole rich life before you. But your
grandmother is not young; she had had him all his life, and he was her
only child."
There were tears in her mother's eyes. Peggy had seldom seen them there.
She slipped down from her chair and went over to her mother, putting an
arm about her waist. It was not of her grandmother that she was
thinking, but of her mother, who had lost so much, and yet was so brave.
Mrs. Owen dried her eyes and was silent for a minute.
Then she said: "Your grandmother is a very lonely person."
"But she lives in the city where there are lots and lots of people,"
said Alice.
"Yes, and she has many friends and acquaintances, but that does not
prevent her being lonely. We are the only near relations she has. You
remember how she wanted to take Peggy and bring her up. I could not
consent to that. Then she wanted us all to spend the summer with her,
and we all of us like better to be at home. But I think she would really
like to spend the summer with us. Now, Peggy, the better one knows
people, the more one finds to like in them, if they are good people; and
it is just a question of what we are looking out for most in this world,
whether it is to be happy ourselves, or to try to make other people
happy. If we are trying to be happy ourselves, all kinds of things turn
up that we did not expect, to spoil our fun. After all, it is not so
very important, whether we are happy or not."
"I think it is very important," said Peggy. "And I guess you thought so
when you were a little girl, mother."
"You are right, Peggy, I did. But now the question is, will you
children try to make your grandmother happy?"
"I'll try," said Peggy; "but I just can't stand it if she doesn't care
about my dear Rhode Island Reds."
But her grandmother did grow to appreciate them, to Peggy's great
surprise. One morning she went out with Peggy when she fed the chickens.
It was a sunny morning, with a soft blue sky and fleecy clouds.
"To think of my being here all these days and not having seen your
hens," said Mrs. Owen.
"I thought, if you waited until you wanted to see them, it would be more
of a treat," said Peggy.
"Who put that idea into your head, your mother?"
"No, I don't want people to see them unless it is a treat."
Peggy's grandmother looked at the little girl's eager, upturned face.
"Do you like them so much, Peggy?" she asked.
Peggy hesitated. It was one of the great decisions of her life. On her
answer depended the success or failure of her intercourse with her
grandmother. If she said, "I like them well enough," they would remain
just seven Rhode Island hens and a cock, so far as her grandmother was
concerned. She looked up at her grandmother, inquiringly. Her
grandmother smiled down at her pleasantly.
"I just love them!" said Peggy.
"What a handsome cock!" said her grandmother.
This compliment to her favorite pleased Peggy. "Isn't he a beauty?" she
said.
"He certainly is," said her grandmother warmly.
"His name is Mr. Henry Cox," said Peggy, in a burst of confidence.
"What a nice name," said her grandmother.
And so it was that the elder Mrs. Owen became interested in feeding the
hens and chickens and helping hunt for eggs, and when she went home, at
the end of the visit, they were all glad to think that she was to spend
the summer with them.
"I am glad she is coming back," said Peggy to Alice. "Do you know,
Alice, I think when she comes back, we'll teach her the geography game."
"I don't think she's got a very nice name," said Alice. "I'm glad they
didn't call me Rebecca, for her. And she can only live in one State."
"Yes," said Peggy, "but it is such a nice State. She could live in Rhode
Island, with all my dear Rhode Island Reds."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Peggy in Her Blue Frock, by Eliza Orne White