GRANDMOTHER
My grandmother was about the nicest grandmother that a boy ever had,
and in memory of her, I am quite partial to all the grandmothers. I
like Whistler's portrait of his mother there in the Luxembourg--the
serene face, the cap and strings, and the folded hands--because it
takes me back to the days and to the presence of my grandmother. She
got into my heart when I was a boy, and she is there yet; and there
she will stay. The bread and butter that she somehow contrived to
get to us boys between meals made us feel that she could read our
minds. I attended a banquet the other night, but they had no such
bread and butter as we boys had there in the shade of that
apple-tree. It was real bread and real butter, and the appetite was
real, too, and that helped to invest grandmother with a halo.
Sometimes she would add jelly, and that caused our cup of joy to run
over. She just could not bear a hungry look on the face of a boy,
and when such a look appeared she exorcised it in the way that a boy
likes. What I liked about her was that she never attached any
conditions to her bread and butter--no, not even when she added
jelly, but her gifts were as free as salvation. The more I think of
the matter, the more I am convinced that her gifts were salvation,
for I know, by experience, that a hungry boy is never a good boy, at
least, not to excess.
Whatever the vicissitudes of life might be to me, I knew that I had a
city of refuge beside grandmother's big armchair, and when trouble
came I instinctively sought that haven, often with rare celerity. In
that hallowed place there could be no hunger, nor thirst, nor
persecution. In that place there was peace and plenty, whatever
there might be elsewhere. I often used to wonder how she could know
a boy so well. I would be aching to go over to play with Tom, and
the first thing I knew grandmother was sending me over there on some
errand, telling me there was no special hurry about coming back. My
father might set his foot down upon some plan of mine ever so firmly,
but grandmother had only to smile at him and he was reduced to a
degree of limpness that contributed to my escape. I have often
wondered whether that smile on the face of grandmother did not remind
him, of some of his own boyish pranks.
We boys knew, somehow, what she expected of us, and her expectation
was the measuring rod with which we tested our conduct. Boy-like, we
often wandered away into a far country, but when we returned, she had
the fatted calf ready for us, with never a question as to our travels
abroad. In that way foreign travel lost something of its glamour,
and the home life made a stronger appeal. She made her own bill of
fare so appetizing that we lost all our relish for husks and the
table companions connected with them. She never asked how or where
we acquired the cherry-stains on our shirts, but we knew that she
recognized cherry-stains when she saw them. The next day our shirts
were innocent of foreign cherry-stains, and we experienced a feeling
of righteousness. She made us feel that we were equal partners with
her in the enterprise of life, and that hoeing the garden and eating
the cookies were our part of the compact.
When we went to stay with her for a week or two we carried with us a
book or so of the lurid sort, but returned home leaving them behind,
generally in the form of ashes. She found the book, of course,
beneath the pillow, and replaced it when she made the bed, but never
mentioned the matter to us. Then, in the afternoon, while we munched
cookies she would read to us from some book that made our own book
seem tame and unprofitable. She never completed the story, however,
but left the book on the table where we could find it easily. No
need to tell that we finished the story, without help, in the
evening, and the next day cremated the other book, having found
something more to our liking. One evening, as we sat together, she
said she wished she knew the name of Jephthah's daughter, and then
went on with her knitting as if she had forgotten her wish. At that
age we boys were not specially interested in daughters, no matter
whose they were; but that challenge to our curiosity was too much for
us, and before we went to bed we knew all that is known of that fine
girl.
That was the beginning of our intimate, personal knowledge of Bible
characters--Ruth, Esther, David, and the rest; but grandmother made
us feel that we had known about them all along. I know, even yet,
just how tall Ruth was, and what was the color of her eyes and hair;
and Esther is the standard by which I measure all the queens of
earth, whether they wear crowns or not.
One day when we went over to play with Tom we saw a peacock for the
first time, and at supper became enthusiastic over the discovery. In
the midst of our rhapsodizing grandmother asked us if we knew how
those beautiful spots came to be in the feathers of the peacock. We
confessed our ignorance, and like Ajax, prayed for light. But we
soon became aware that our prayer would not be answered until after
the supper dishes had been washed. Our alacrity in proffering our
services is conclusive evidence that grandmother knew about
motivation whether she knew the word or not. We suggested the
omission of the skillets and pans for that night only, but the
suggestion fell upon barren soil, and the regular order of business
was strictly observed.
Then came the story, and the narrator made the characters seem
lifelike to us as they passed in review. There were Jupiter and
Juno; there were Argus with his hundred eyes, the beautiful heifer
that was Io, and the crafty Mercury. In rapt attention we listened
until those eyes of Argus were transferred to the feathers of the
peacock. If Mercury's story of his musical pipe closed the eyes of
Argus, grandmother's story opened ours wide, and we clamored for
another, as boys will do. Nor did we ask in vain, and we were soon
learning of the Flying Mercury, and how light and airy Mercury was,
seeing that an infant's breath could support him. After telling of
the wild ride of Phaeton and his overthrow, she quoted from John G.
Saxe:
"Don't set it down in your table of forces
That any one man equals any four horses.
Don't swear by the Styx!
It is one of old Nick's
Diabolical tricks
To get people into a regular 'fix,'
And hold 'em there as fast as bricks!"
Be it said to our credit that after such an evening dish-washing was
no longer a task, but rather a delightful prelude to another
mythological feast. We wandered with Ulysses and shuddered at
Polyphemus; we went in quest of the Golden Fleece, and watched the
sack of Troy; we came to know Orpheus and Eurydice and Pyramus and
Thisbe; and we sowed dragon's teeth and saw armed men spring up
before us. Since those glorious evenings with grandmother the
classic myths have been among my keenest delights. I read again and
again Lowell's extravaganza upon the story of Daphne, and can hear
grandmother's laugh over his delicious puns. I can hear her voice as
she reads Shelley's musical Arethusa, and then turns to his Skylark
to compare their musical qualities. I feel downright sorry for the
boy who has no such grandmother to teach him these poems, but not
more sorry than I do for those boys who took that Diamond Dick book
with them when they went visiting. Even now, when people talk to me
of omniscience I always think of grandmother.