A PAGE FROM HISTORY
For several days a peaceful quiet reigned at Overlook. Little Alice
dogged her mother's footsteps, as though she could not bear one
moment's separation; Barbara spent the greater part of her time at the
golf club, coming home each day glowing with enthusiasm over the game
and fired with a hope of winning the women's championship title. Billy
had no thought for anything but the new sending set which his father
had ordered for him and which Joe Gary was helping him to install.
Keineth, under Peggy's tutorage, was faithfully practicing at tennis,
spending much time volleying balls back and forth across the net and
trying to understand the technic of the game. Then each afternoon came
a delicious dip into the lake, when Mrs. Lee would patiently instruct
Keineth in swimming. They were gloriously happy days--seeming very
care-free after the hours of agonizing concern over Alice; days that
brought new color into the young faces and an added glow into the
bright eyes.
"Does Keineth know how we spend the Fourth of July?" Billy asked one
evening.
"I hate firecrackers!" Keineth shuddered. "We always went away over the
Fourth to a little place out on Long Island."
"We just have balloons and Roman candles in the evening because they
are not dangerous," Peggy explained.
"And then on the Fourth we always make our visit to Grandma Sparks."
"Who is she?" asked Keineth. She had never heard them speak of Grandma
Sparks.
"Father calls her a page out of history."
"Every man that had ever lived in her family has served his country--"
"She isn't really our grandmother. Just a dear friend."
Barbara explained further: "She has the most interesting little old
home about two miles from here. Part of it is over one hundred years
old! She lives there all alone. And her house is filled with the most
wonderful furniture--queer chairs and great big beds with posts that go
to the ceiling and one has to step on little stepladders to get into
them, only no one ever does because she lives there all alone. She has
some plates that Lafayette ate from and a cup that George Washington
drank out of--"
"And the funniest toys--a doll that belonged to her grandmother and is
made of wood and painted, with a queer silk dress, all ruffles! She
always lets me play with it."
"And her great-great-grandmother, when she was a little girl, held an
arch with some other children, at Trenton, for Washington to pass
through when he went by horse to New York for his first inauguration.
They all wore white and the arch was covered with roses. Grandma Sparks
loves to tell of it and how Washington patted her great-great-grandmother
on the head! If you ask her to tell you the story she will be very
happy, Keineth."
"I like her guns best--" cried Billy. "She's got all kinds of guns and
things they used way back in the Revolution!"
"And she has a roomful of books and letters from great people that her
ancestors collected. Why, Father says that she would be very rich if
she'd sell the papers she has, but she will not part with a thing!
Mother says she just lives in the past and she'd rather starve than to
take money for one of her relics!"
"I'd rather have the money, you bet," muttered Billy.
"I wouldn't--I think it must be wonderful to have a letter that was
really written and signed by President Lincoln himself," Barbara
declared.
"I'm awfully glad we're going there," said Keineth eagerly.
"Let's ask her to tell us about how her brother dug his way out of
Andersonville Prison! She'll show us the broken knife, Ken!"
"Why, Billy, she's told us that story dozens of times--let's ask for a
new one!" To Keineth: "After she gives us gingerbread and milk and
little tarts she tells us a story while we all sit under the apple
tree!"
"And say, she can make the best tarts!" interrupted Billy. "Oh, I wish
the Fourth would hurry and come!" echoed Keineth. It did come--a
glorious sunny morning! Billy's bugle wakened them at a very early
hour. Before breakfast the children, with Mr. and Mrs. Lee, circled
about the flag pole on the lawn, and, while Billy slowly pulled the
Stars and Stripes to the top, in chorus they repeated the oath of
allegiance to their flag. Keineth--her eyes turned upward, suddenly
felt a rush of loneliness for her father. A little prayer formed on her
lips to the flag she was honoring. "Please take care of him wherever he
is!"
At noon, in Genevieve, they started merrily off for Grandma Sparks! In
her mind Keineth had drawn a picture of a stately Colonial house, with
great pillars, such as she had sometimes seen while driving with Aunt
Josephine. Great was her surprise when Billy turned into a grass-grown
driveway which led past a broken-down gate and stopped at the door of
a weather-gray house; its walls almost concealed by the vines growing
from ground to gable and even rambling over the patched roof. At the
door of the house stood a noble apple tree, spreading its branches in
loving protection over the old stone steps which led to the threshold.
Through the small-paned window Grandma Sparks had been watching for
them. She came out quickly; a tiny figure in a dress as gray and
weather-beaten as the house itself, a cap covering her white head. Her
hands were stretched out in eager welcome and her smile seemed to
embrace them all at once.
"Well--well--well," was all she could say.
Keineth felt suddenly as though this quaint little lady had indeed
stepped out of one of her own dusty old books--she could not be a part,
possibly, of their busy world! And while the others talked she
examined, with unconcealed interest, the queer heavy furniture, the
colored prints on the walls and the old spinnet in the corner. Billy
was already taking down the guns and Alice sat rocking the doll.
Keineth was shown the picture of the great-great-grandmother who had
held the arch and was told the story; she saw the plates and the cup
and the broken knife. They unfolded the flags that had been in the
family for generations and reread the letters that Mrs. Sparks kept in
a heavy mahogany box. One of them--most treasured of all--had been
written to her mother in praise of her brother's bravery on the
battlefield under action, and was signed "A. Lincoln."
"My greatest grief in life," the little old lady said, holding the
letter close to her heart, "is that I have no son who may for his
generation serve his country, if they need him!"
Afterwards Barbara told Keineth that Mrs. Sparks had once had a little
boy who had been born a cripple and died when he was twelve years old.
While Barbara and Peggy were busy spreading a picnic--table under the
apple tree, Keineth told Grandma Sparks of her own father and how he
had gone away to serve his country, too; but that it was a secret and
no one knew he was a soldier because he wore no uniform.
"The truest hearts aren't always under a uniform, my dear," and the old
lady patted Keineth's hand. "The service that is done quietly and with
no beating of drums is the hardest service to do!" After the
picnic--and the picnic _had_ included the gingerbread and tarts and
patties that Barbara had described and which the dear old lady had
spent hours in preparing--they grouped themselves under the apple tree;
Grandma in the old rocker Billy had brought from the house.
"Not about Andersonville, please," begged Peggy. "Why, I know that by
heart! A new one!"
"Something about the war," Billy urged.
Barbara interrupted, shuddering. "No--no! I can't bear to think there
is a war right now--"
"Child--I had thought that never again in my lifetime would this world
know a war! We have much to learn, yet--we are not ready for a lasting
peace. But it will come!"
"That's what my father says--we must all learn to live like families in
a nice street," added Keineth gravely.
"Oh, well--if the girls can't stand a story about the war, tell us
something about the early settlers! I like adventure--if I'd lived in
those days you bet I'd have discovered something!" "I remember," mused
the old lady, "a story my father used to tell! We have the papers about
it somewhere. Let me think--it was about a trading post on the Ohio and
a captive maiden brought there by the Indians!"
Billy threw his cap in the air.
"Indians! Hooray!"