The old lady took her work-bag and went down into the living-room.
She’d be careful not to get threads around—she knew how Minnie hated
that. She was working on a centrepiece, in colours, to be sold at the
March sale of the Church Circle. The old lady was glad she could do
things like that. Her glasses were of silver and quite bent. The lenses
had been fitted for her years before and she had to hold the sewing
quite close. She embroidered until it was too dark to see. Then she
folded her wrinkled hands in her lap. She didn’t believe in “wasting
electricity” by turning it on too early.
She sat at the window and thought about things—about Minnie and
Herman—how mean Minnie was about little things, about Herman’s
stupidity and blindness about everything excepting himself. Herman—and
the boys, too—never read anything or saw anything they didn’t apply
to themselves. They were never interested in a single outside thing.
All they talked about was what “he said” and how business was going to
be. Nothing existed outside of Graniteville. They were so conceited,
satisfied. Fanny was just as bad and she whined, too—but she had
Elbert. A child is always a little better than nothing. But Helen
didn’t have any children.
As the old lady grew older the necessity for progeny, so overwhelmingly
important in her younger life, had diminished. What difference did it
make, anyhow? Elbert, pale and in the sulks, usually—the only one of a
fourth generation. Of course the boys might marry and have children.
What of it? Of course, if it weren’t for Herman, if she hadn’t had
children, she wouldn’t have had a home, might have had to go to the
poor-house, maybe. But then, if she hadn’t had children, she might have
learned a trade and made enough money to get into one of the homes she
had read about, where you pay a few thousand dollars and have a nice
room and pictures in the evening and company when you like. Still, of
course, things couldn’t be changed, were all right—there was Helen’s
letter—
The twilight deepened. The old lady went into the kitchen, turned on a
light, put the meat into the oven.
At six Lu came in, then Phil. Then Fanny and Minnie and Elbert. They
had gone to call on Mrs. Harden and Elbert had fallen asleep and was
cross, now. Fanny was going upstairs to “make herself comfortable,”
would Gramma undress Elbert?
Fanny put on a pink cotton kimono and went downstairs. The old lady
got Elbert to bed, finally. When she got downstairs she saw that Fanny
and her mother were busy in the dining-room. She heard the crackle of
paper. Discreetly she stayed in the kitchen. They were preparing her
birthday presents.
Dinner was ready. Herman had already come home. Herman liked to eat as
soon as he got into the house.
The old lady went into the dining-room. The boys were already seated
at the table. Herman sat down. Fanny was putting the potatoes on the
table. The old lady found a small pile of bundles at her place, the
birthday cake on the table.
“This is very nice,” she smiled, “I thank you all even before I look.”
She sat down, unassisted. She opened the bundles.
There was a bottle of violet toilet water from Fred. She got that every
year. It was not her favourite brand—rather a cheaper kind, in fact,
but she liked almost any kind of violet. A pale pink satin pincushion
came next. A card was stuck on it with pins. On this was written in
Fanny’s rather stupid, slanting hand:
“To great-grandmother from her little great-grandson, Elbert Arthur
Longham, on her 82nd birthday.”
The present from Minnie was a hand-made camisole of rather coarse
lace—the old lady never wore camisoles, a fact of which Minnie should
have been faintly aware. Well, she could make Minnie “take it back” and
wear it herself after a month or so. It was Minnie’s size, undoubtedly.
There was a pound box of chocolates from Lu. Grandma preferred lemon
drops or any hard candies that you can suck and make last a long time,
but the family liked chocolates. A boudoir cap from Fanny—a present
some one had probably given her for Christmas—and a combination
drug-store box of soap, dental cream and nail polish from Herman
completed the gifts. Phil apologized that he’d been busy every minute
and he’d “get something to-morrow.”
The old lady put the wrapping paper neatly together and put the things
on the sideboard next to the cut-glass punch bowl. She sat down again.
Minnie, who served, was filling the plates.
“Thanks, everybody, again,” said the old lady. “Your things are very
nice and very welcome.”
She looked at the group, the selfish, complacent faces. She smiled.
“I—I got a card from Roger and—and two other presents,” she said, and
took the card and letters from the front of her waist.
She passed the card around the table and opened a letter.
“It’s from Morris and Ruby,” she explained. “They sent me five dollars.”
“Not much for a rich man to send his mother,” Herman commented. “He
hasn’t any expenses from you and all he ever does is to send you five
dollars a month for spending money. I hear he’s doing better every
month and that’s all—”
“Now, Herman,” soothed Minnie. She wanted to hear the letter. Ruby
never wrote to her.
The old lady read the letter, about Ruby’s cold and the snow storm and
Morris’ business success. She folded it and put it on the table.
“This one is from Helen, from Chicago,” she said. She added “from
Chicago,” purposely. She knew how Fanny longed to live in a big city.
“Dear Gammy,” she read, and added, “Helen always uses that nickname
just like when she was a baby.”
She knew the family hated nicknames. They thought Gramma a proper
pronunciation.
“To think that you’re eighty-two,” she continued to read. “Quite out
of the flapper class, it seems. This is to welcome the New Year and to
send bushels of love and good wishes from the two of us. I wish you
were spending your birthday with us, but I know the family do all they
can to make you happy.”
The old lady glanced at them all. She was glad to see they looked a
little uncomfortable.
“We’ve been awfully busy as usual,” the old lady read on. “Since
Jimmy’s been made president of the company he’s getting so conceited
that he insists on going to horrid business meetings at night
sometimes, so, in self-defence, I have to go to dinners with some of my
old beaux.”
The old lady looked at Fanny and smiled.
“Helen has a good time,” she said, “I like to think of a young girl
enjoying herself.”
Helen was Fanny’s age. Fanny had no “old beaux,” nor any other kind to
take her to dinner. Fanny was unpopular.
The old lady went on reading:
“But Jim gets an occasional afternoon off and that’s compensation. We
have heaps of fun driving or just trailing around together. Jim’s as
devoted as ever—I’ll say that for him. I’m afraid we’ll never quite
settle down, even if we have been married a long time.”
“Helen’s a great girl,” said the old lady. “She and Jim—I never saw
a couple like them. She knows how to hold him. I never saw a man so
devoted.”
The old lady smiled. Fred’s wife had eloped with another man. Fanny’s
husband had “gone out West” and never returned. This would give them
something to think about.
“I don’t know that I think her husband ought to stand for her going
places with other men,” said Fanny. “It don’t sound right to me. When
Helen came down here to visit, when she was seventeen, she was fresh
then.”
The old lady looked at her.
“Yes. I guess Helen did seem fresh in Graniteville,” she agreed.
“But Chicago’s different. And as most of the folks they go with are
millionaires, each owning two or three cars and having boxes at the
opera and making a fuss over Helen all the time, I guess her ways are
all right up there. I don’t blame men wanting to take her places. She’s
just sweet to every one.”
She went on with the letter:
“I don’t know what to write that would interest you. We saw Mrs.
Blanchard, Mrs. Crowell’s mother, at the theatre on Tuesday, and she
wanted to be remembered to you. She looked very well.... I have a new
mink wrap, good-looking. Jim thought it was a Christmas present, but
it came the week after so I’m not counting it. It’s the only really
splurgy thing I’ve had all winter.”
The old lady didn’t have to comment. Fanny was wearing her old coat.
She’d been begging her brothers and her father for a coat all winter,
but they complained about “hard times,” as they always did, so she had
to make her old seal, bare in spots, do for another year.
“I went to a charity fête last week,” the old lady’s quavering voice
continued, “and wore green chiffon and was symbolic of something or
other, but had a good time anyhow. We made nearly eight thousand
dollars for the Children’s Home.”
The old lady knew the church society entertainments in Graniteville.
Fanny and Minnie were never important enough, socially, to take part in
them, but had to sell tickets as their share.
“I’m enclosing a birthday remembrance. Buy a warm negligée or something
else you want. I didn’t know what you needed. Let me know if there is
anything I can send you. Jim sends a big kiss and a lot of birthday
wishes. With love from Helen.”
“How much did she send you?” asked Minnie.
The old lady, who was served last, had been handed her plate of food.
“Twenty-five dollars,” she answered.
She took the cheque from Helen and the one from Morris, folded them
together, made a last gesture.
“Here, you take these, Fanny,” she said, “and buy a dress with them.
You’ll have to have something to wear if you get a chance to go to the
Ladies’ Aid Ball. With all the things I got and my birthday presents
and all, I don’t need anything. Anyhow, Helen said to let her know if I
did.”
It was said so simply that, if the family suspected the old lady, they
were silent. Fanny gasped, reached out her hand. She did want a new
dress.
“Thanks, Gramma,” she said.