HOW SHE PLAYED WITH THE CHILDREN
I ASKED Anne Peace once, when we were talking about Grandmother (it was
not till the next year that we came to the village), how soon it was
that the children found her out. Very soon, Anne said. It began with
their trying to tease her by shouting “Grandmother!” over the wall and
running away. She caught one of them and carried him into the garden
screaming and kicking (she was strong, for all her slenderness), and
soon she had him down in the grass listening to a story, eyes and
mouth wide open, and all the rest of them hanging over the wall among
the grapevines, “trying so hard to hear you could ’most see their ears
grow!” said Anne, laughing.
“It was wonderful the way she had with them. I used to wish she would
keep a school, after she was left alone, but I don’t know; maybe she
couldn’t have taught them so much in the book way; but where she
learned all the things she did tell ’em—it passes me. I used to ask
her: ’Grandmother,’ I’d say, ’where do you get it all?’ And she’d laugh
her pretty way, and say:
“‘Eye and ear,
See and hear;
Look and listen well, my dear!’
That was all there was to it, she’d say, but we knew better.”
I can remember her stories now. Perhaps they were not so wonderful as
we thought; perhaps it was the way she had with her that made them so
enchanting. I never shall forget the story of the little Prince who
would go a-wooing. His mother, the old Queen, said to him:
“Look she sweet or speak she fair,
Mark what she does when they curl her hair!”
“So the little Prince started off on his travels, and soon he met a
beautiful Princess with lovely curls as white as flax. She looked
sweet, and she spoke fair, and the little Prince thought ‘Here is the
bride for me!’ But he minded him of what his mother said, and when the
Princess went to have her hair curled he stood under the window and
listened.
“And what did he hear, children? He heard the voice that had spoken him
sweet as honey, but now it was sharp and thin as vinegar. ‘Careless
slut!’ it said. ‘If you pull my hair again I will have you beaten.’
“Then the little Prince shook his head and sighed, and started again
on his travels. By and by he met another Princess, and she was red as
a rose, with black curls shining like jet, and her eyes so bright and
merry that the Prince thought, ‘Sure, this is the bride for me!’
“The Princess thought so too, and she looked sweet and spoke fair;
but the Prince minded him of what his mother had said, and when the
Princess went to have her hair curled he listened again beneath the
window. But oh, children, what did he hear? Angry words and stamping
feet, and then a sharp stinging sound; and out came the maid flying and
crying, with her hand to her cheek that had been slapped till it was
red as fire. So when the Prince saw that he sighed again and shook his
head, and started off on his travels.
“Before long he met a third Princess, and she was fair as a star, and
her curls like brown gold, and falling to her knees. She looked so
sweet that the Prince’s heart went out to her more than to either of
the others; but he was afraid after what had passed, and waited for
the hour of the hair-curling. When that came, he was going toward the
window, when there passed him a young maiden running, with her face all
in a glow of happiness.
“‘Whither away so fast, pretty maid?’ asked the Prince.
“‘Do not stay me!’ said the maid. ‘I go to curl the Princess’s hair,
and I must not be late, for it is the happiest hour of my day.’
“‘Is it so?’ said the Prince. ‘Then will you tell the Princess that
when her hair is curled I pray that she will marry me?’
“And so she did, children, of course, and they had a happy day for
every thread of her brown-gold hair, so I am told, and there were so
many threads, I think they must be alive to this day.”
And the bird stories! and the story of how the butterfly’s wings were
spotted! and the flower stories! I don’t suppose there was a child in
the village in those days who did not believe that at night all the
flowers in Grandfather Merion’s garden were dancing round the fairy
ring in the home pasture.
“And Sweet William said to Clove Pink, ‘How sweet the fringe on your
gown is! Will you dance with me, pretty lady?’ So they danced away
and away, and they met Bachelor’s Button waltzing with Cowslip, and
young Larkspur kicking up his heels with Poppy Gay, and Prince’s
Feather bowing low before sweet white Lily in her satin gown, and
Crown Imperial leading out Queen Rose—oh! but she was a queen indeed!
And the music played—such music! the locust went tweedle, tweedle,
tweedle, and the cricket went chirp, chirp, chirp, and the big green
frog that played the bass viol said ‘glum! glum! glum!’ And they
danced—oh, they danced!
“Whirl about, twirl about, hop, hop, hop! till—hush! something
happened. Oh! children, come close while I whisper. The green turf
of the Ring trembled and shook—and opened—and—oh! off go the
flowers scampering back to bed as fast as they can go; and in their
places—oh! hush! oh, hush! I must not tell.
“Green jacket, red cap, and white owl’s feather!
Little lights that twinkle, little bells that jingle, little feet that
trip, trip—
“Hush, children! we must not look. Home again, we too, after the
flowers!”
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.”