TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
GRANDMOTHER
Handy Volume Editions
of Copyrighted Fiction
BY
LAURA E.
RICHARDS
MRS. TREE’S WILL $ .75
MRS. TREE .75
GEOFFREY STRONG .75
FOR TOMMY .75
LOVE AND ROCKS .75
CAPTAIN JANUARY .75
_Tall 16mos, Individual Cover
Designs. Illustrated._
DANA ESTES & CO., PUBLISHERS
ESTES PRESS, BOSTON, MASS.
[Illustration: “GRANDMOTHER KNELT DOWN BESIDE HIM, AND TOOK HIS HAND.”
(_See page 62_)]
[Illustration:
GRANDMOTHER
The Story of a Life That Never
Was Lived
By
Laura E. Richards
_Author of_
“Captain January,” “Melody,” “Marie,” “Mrs. Tree’s
Will,” etc.
Boston
DANA ESTES & COMPANY
Publishers]
_Copyright_, 1907
BY DANA ESTES & COMPANY
_All rights reserved_
GRANDMOTHER
_COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A._
TO
MY DAUGHTER
Elizabeth
I heard an angel singing
When the day was springing,
“Mercy, pity and peace
Are the world’s release!”
—WILLIAM BLAKE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HOW SHE CAME TO THE VILLAGE 1
II. HOW THE FIRST LINE CAME IN HER FACE 15
III. HOW SHE PLAYED WITH THE CHILDREN 30
IV. HOW SHE SANG GRANDFATHER TO SLEEP 50
V. HOW THE SECOND LINE CAME IN HER FOREHEAD 65
VI. HOW SHE WENT VISITING 81
VII. HOW THE LIGHT CAME TO HER 99
VIII. HOW HER HAIR TURNED WHITE 116
IX. HOW SHE FOUND PEACE 132
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
“GRANDMOTHER KNELT DOWN BESIDE HIM, AND
TOOK HIS HAND”(_Page 62_) _Frontispiece_
“THE LONG WHITE LILY—PUTTING IT DELICATELY TO HER CHEEK” 20
“GRANDMOTHER HAD FORGOTTEN ALL THE WORLD EXCEPT THE CHILD” 102
“SHE LAY LIKE AN IVORY STATUE” 145
GRANDMOTHER
CHAPTER I
HOW SHE CAME TO THE VILLAGE
SHE was a slip of a girl when first she came to the village; slender
and delicate, with soft brown hair blowing about her soft face. Those
who saw her coming down the street beside Grandfather Merion thought he
had brought back one of his grandnieces with him from the west for a
visit; it was known that he had been out there, and he had been away
all summer.
Anne Peace and her mother looked up from their sewing as the pair went
by; Grandfather Merion walking slow and stately with his ivory-headed
stick and his great three-cornered hat, the last one left in the
village, his kind wise smile greeting the neighbors as he met them; and
beside him this tall slender maiden in her light print gown that the
wind was tossing about, as it tossed the brown cloud of hair about her
cheeks.
“Look, mother!” said Anne Peace. “She is for all the world like a
windflower, so pretty and slim. Who is it, think?”
“Some of his western kin, I s’pose,” said Widow Peace. “She is a
pretty piece. See if she’s got the new back, Anne; I was wishful some
stranger would come to town to show us how it looked.”
“Land, Mother,” said Anne; “her gown’s nothing but calico, and might
have come out of the Ark, looks ’s though; not but what ’tis pretty on
her. Real graceful! There! see her look up at him, just as sweet! I
expect she is his grandniece, likely. There they go in ’t the gate, and
he’s left it open, and the hens’ll get out. Rachel won’t like that! She
keeps her hens real careful.”
“She fusses ’em most to death!” said Mrs. Peace. “If I was a hen I
should go raving distracted if Rachel Merion had the rearin’ of me.
Why, Anne! why, look at Rachel this minute, runnin’ down the garden
path. She looks as if something was after her. My sakes! she’s comin’
in here. What in the—”
Rachel Merion, a tall handsome young woman with a general effect of
black and red about her, came out of her door and down the path like
an arrow shot from a bow. At one dash she reached the gate and paused
to flash a furious look back at the house; with a second dash she was
across the road, and in another instant she stood in Mrs. Peace’s
sitting-room, quivering like a bowstring.
“Mis’ Peace!” she cried. “Anne! he’s done it! he has! he has, I tell
you! I’ll go crazy or drown myself; I will! I will!”
She began beating the air with her hands and screaming in short
breathless gasps. Mrs. Peace looked calmly at her over her spectacles.
“There, Rachel!” she said. “You are in a takin’, aren’t you? Set down a
spell, till you feel quieter, and then tell us about it.”
Anne, seeing the girl past speech, rose quietly, and taking her hand,
forced her to sit down; then taking a bowl of water from the table, wet
her brow and head repeatedly, speaking low and soothingly the while:
“There, Rachel! there! You’re better now, aren’t you? Take a long
breath, and count ten slowly; there! there!”
The angry girl took a deep breath and then another; soon the power of
speech returned, and broke out in a torrent.
“I always knew he would!” she cried. “I’ve looked for it ever since
Mother was cold in her grave and before, you know I have, Anne Peace. I
looked for it with Aunt ’Melia till I routed her out of the house, and
I looked for it with Mis’ Wiley till I sent _her_ flying. I wish’t now
I’d let ’em alone, both of ’em. I’d sooner he’d married ’em both, and
been a Turk and done with it, instead of this.”
Mrs. Peace looked over her spectacles with mild severity.
“Rachel Merion,” she said, “what are you talking about? If it’s your
grandfather, why then I tell you plain, that is no proper way for you
to talk. What has happened? speak out plain!”
“He’s married!” Rachel fairly shrieked. “Married to a girl of eighteen,
and brought her back to sit over me and order me about in my own house.
I’ll teach ’em! I’ll let ’em see if I’m going to be bossed round by a
brown calico rag doll. They’ll find me dead on the threshold first.”
“_Married!_” cried Mrs. Peace and Anne. “Oh, Rachel! it can’t be. You
can’t have understood him. It’s one of his grandnieces, I expect, your
Aunt Sophia’s daughter. She settled out west, I’ve always heard.”
“I tell you he’s married!” cried Rachel. “Didn’t he tell me so? didn’t
he lead her in by the hand (she was scared, I’ll say that for her;
she’d better be!) and say ‘Rachel, here’s my wife! here’s your little
grandmother that’s come to be a playmate for you.’ Little grandmother!
that’s what I’ll call her, I guess. Let her _be_ a grandmother, and sit
in the chimney corner and smoke a cob pipe and wear a cap tied under
her chin. But if ever she dares to sit in my chair, I’ll kill her and
myself too. Oh, Mis’ Peace, I wish I was dead! I wish everybody was
dead.”
So that was how Grandmother came by her name. It seems strange that it
should have been first given as a taunt.
And while Rachel was raving and weeping, and the good Peaces, who
tried to live up to their name, were soothing her with quiet and
comfortable words, Grandmother was standing in the middle of the
great Merion kitchen, with her hands folded before her in the light
pretty way she had, listening to Grandfather; and while she listened
she looked to and fro with shy startled glances, and seemed to sway
lightly from side to side, as if a breath would move her; she was like
a windflower, as Anne Peace said.
“You mustn’t mind Rachel,” Grandfather was saying, as he filled his
long pipe and settled himself in his great chair. “She is like the
wind that bloweth where it listeth; where it listeth. She has grown
up motherless—like yourself, my dear, but with a difference; with a
difference; neither your grandmother—I would say, neither my wife nor
I have ever governed her enough. She has rather governed me, being of
that disposition; of that disposition. Yes! But she is a fine girl, and
I hope you will be good friends. This is the kitchen, where we mostly
sit in summer, for coolness, you see; Rachel cooks mostly in the back
kitchen in summer. That is the sitting-room beyond, which you will find
pleasant in cooler weather. That is the pantry door, and that one opens
on the cellar stairs. Comfortable, all very comfortable. I hope you
will be happy, my dear. Do you think you will be happy?”
He looked at her with a shade of anxiety in his cheerful eyes, and
waited for her reply.
“Oh—yes!” said Grandmother, with a flutter in her voice that told of
a sob somewhere near. “Yes, sir, if—if she will not always be angry.
Will she always, do you think?”
“No! No!” said Grandfather; “very soon, very soon, we’ll all be
comfortable, all be comfortable. Just don’t mind her, my dear. Let her
be, and she’ll come round.”
He nodded wisely with his kind grave smile. By and by he bade her go
out in the garden and gather a posy for herself; and then he took his
hat and stepped across the road to Widow Peace’s.
Grandmother started obediently, but when she came to the garden door
she stopped and looked out with wide startled eyes. Rachel in her
scarlet dress was down on her knees in the poppy bed, the pride of her
heart, and was plucking up the poppies in furious haste, dragging them
up by the roots and trampling them under her feet.
* * * * *
“It seemed the only thing to do!” said Grandfather Merion, absently.
“Wild parts, Susan; wild parts, ma’am! Her parents dead, as I told
you, and the child left with the innkeeper’s wife, who was not—not
a person fitted to bring up a young girl; no other woman—at least
none of suitable character near. It seemed clearly my duty to bring
the child away. Then—my search led me into mining camps, and often I
had to be off alone among the mountains, as a rumor came from here or
there—the marriage bond was a protection, you see; yes, I was clear as
to my duty. But I confess I forgot about Rachel, Susan, and Rachel is
so ungoverned! I fear she will not—a—not be subject to my wife—whose
name is Pity, by the way, Susan; a quaint name; she is a very good
child. I am sure you and little Annie will be good to her.”
Good Widow Peace promised, and so did Anne, her soft brown eyes shining
with good-will; but when he was gone back, the old woman shook her
head. “No good can come of it!” she said. “I hadn’t the heart to say
so, Anne, for poor Grandfather must have a hard time, searching them
cruel mountains for his graceless son; but no good can come of it.”
“But we can try!” said Anne.