Do you remember the day she lost her glasses? My, such a commotion!
Everybody turned in to hunt for them. Grandmother tramped from one end
of the house to the other--we all searched--upstairs and down--with no
success.
They weren't in the big Bible (we turned the leaves carefully many
times--it was the most likely place). They weren't in either of her
sewing baskets, nor in the cook-book in the kitchen. Grandfather said
she could use one pair of his gold-bowed ones--but shucks! She couldn't
see with anything except those old steel-bowed specs! ...
And then, when she finally sat down and said for the fiftieth time: "I
wonder where those specs are!" ... and put the corner of her apron to
her eyes--I happened to look up, and there they were--on the top of her
head! Been there all the time ... And she enjoyed the joke as much as
we did--a joke that went around the little town and followed her
through all the years within my memory of her.
Sometimes (as often as expedient), you asked her for a penny--never
more, and then:
"Now, Willie, what do you want with a penny? I haven't got it. Run
along now."
"Aw, Gran'ma, don't make a feller tell what he's goin' to buy. I know
you got one--Look'n see! Please, Gran'ma!"
Slowly the wrinkled hand would fumble for that skirt-pocket which was
always so hard to locate--and from its depths there would come the old
worn leather wallet with a strap around it--and slowly, (gee! how
s-l-o-w-l-y),--after much fumbling, during which you were never sure
whether you were going to get it or not ... the penny would come forth
and be placed (with seeming reluctance) in the grimy, dirty boy-hand.
And usually, just as you reached the door on your hurried way to the
nearest candy-shop, she would scare you almost stiff by calling you
back, and say:
"Wait a minute, Willie, I found another one that I didn't know was in
here!"
And then you kissed her wrinkled, soft check and ran away thinking,
after all, grandmother was pretty good.
Good?
Can a woman stick to a man through sixty-odd years--and keep his linen
and his broadcloth--and bear him children--and make them into fine
wives and husbands--and take them back to her bosom when their mates
turn against them--and raise a bunch of riotous grandchildren--and
manage such a household as ours with never a complaint--get up at five
o'clock every morning and sit up till half-after nine o'clock every
night--busy all the time--and nurse her own and other folks' ailments
without a murmur--and submerge self completely in her constant doing
for others--can a frail woman so live for eighty-six years and be
anything less than good?
And then, at the end of the long journey she was still trudging
patiently and gladly along, side by side with Grandfather--making less
fuss over the years--old pain in her knees than we make now over a
splinter in a finger--going daily and uncomplainingly about her
manifold duties.
And at night, about an hour before bedtime, she would sit down in the
black-upholstered rocker almost behind the big base burner--her first
quiet moment in all the long day--head resting against the chair's high
back--and doze and listen to the fitful conversation in the room, or to
someone reading--giving everything, demanding nothing--as had been her
wont all the long years!
And Christmas eve ... (I'll have to go a bit slow now) ... On Christmas
eve, you remember, when out-of-doors the big snow-flakes were slowly
and softly fluttering down, grandmother would get the huge Bible and
her treasure-box and bring them up to the little round table covered
with its red cloth ... And you'd get a chair and come up close ('cause
you knew what was happening) ... Then she would read you a wonderful
story out of the Bible about the love of God so great that He sent His
only-begotten Son to be a Light unto the World ... and then she'd go
down into that little old card-board treasure-box and find some
Christmas carols printed in beautiful colors on lace-edged cards folded
up just like a fan. She would look down at you over the top of her
specs and tell you how the street minstrels in England used to stand
out in the snow and sing, and be brought into the house and given a
warm mug and a bite to eat--going from house to house all through the
early night ...
And then she would close her eyes and begin to sing the dear old carols
... with the tremble in her voice ... and tapping on the table with her
finger-ends in rhythm ... and Memory's tears dropping on the wrinkled
checks ... and the tremulous voice, still soft and sweet, chanting:
"God rest you, merrie gentlemen!
Let nothing you dismay;
For Jesus Christ, our Saviour,
Was born on Christmas Day!"
.............
Aye and amen, dear soul! God rest you--and He does!